


A Goalie's Best Friend

by Carlough



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Fic for Victory 2016, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-12 18:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7944292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlough/pseuds/Carlough
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babe Heffron, the newest member of the East Coast Hockey League's Toccoa Airborne, learns to navigate life as a professional hockey player with the gentle guiding assistance of his new best friend and self-assigned mentor Bill Guarnere.  With a team like this, he's probably going to need all the help he can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Get Involved In Your Teammate's Problems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> This was written for partypaprika for the prompt "Sports AU -- The men of band of brothers are on a team together! Hijinks and adventures ensue," which was such a dream prompt for me that I had to immediately send the mod an email thanking her for giving it to me (and she knows me well enough to know exactly what I'd do with it). I had started this fic intending to post the whole thing at once, but I ended up not liking what I'd written partway through, so it was scrapped and I'm in the process of writing it now, in the format of ten "lessons" that Bill will impart to Babe.
> 
> For the uninitiated, the East Coast Hockey League or ECHL is the third-tier of professional ice hockey in North America, following the National Hockey League (NHL) and American Hockey League (AHL), and no, the teams are not all located on the east coast, though they used to be. I am not super familiar with the workings of the ECHL the way I am with the NHL, so a lot of research went into this fic; however, it's entirely likely that I got something wrong, so if you notice anything that sounds glaringly impossible or unlikely for an ECHL team, please let me know!
> 
> In other news, this is actually only the third or fourth goofiest hockey fic that I've ever written. Take that as you will.

**1\. Don't get involved in your teammate's problems.**

"If you think I give a flying _fuck_ about you, you've got another thing coming, jackass!"

Those were the words that greeted Babe as he entered the locker room on his first day of training camp. He figured it boded well for the beginning of his professional career.

"I honestly could not care less about you, you insufferable prick! I'm here for the _team_ , not for you."

There were two dark-haired men in the middle of the room who were dangerously close to stepping on the team logo and had apparently lost all semblance of personal space in favor of getting their faces within inches of each other, presumably to better express their mutual hatred. Based on their stiff postures and clenched fists they probably wouldn't be sticking solely to words for very long. It had been a while since Babe had actually seen teammates try to fight each other, and never before the preseason had even gotten underway.

The Toccoa Airborne was shaping up to be an interesting team.

"That's Liebgott and Webster," Bill said in a low, conspiratorial voice. "They're the resident soap opera." He nudged Babe with his bag to get him moving in the direction of their stalls. Bill had, upon discovering that Babe was both from Philly and a fellow defenseman, formally announced that Babe was to be "his rookie" and that he had better prepare himself to be "fucking mentored." Given that they were also living together in a house owned by the team, Babe had been getting a lot of fucking mentoring already and training camp hadn't even begun yet.

"At least you can turn off a soap opera," a guy muttered darkly as they passed him.

Bill cackled and slapped him on the back.

"Hang in there, Skinny. Hey, you should be glad that the band's getting back together, you might be on the top line again!"

The guy, Skinny, looked poised to respond before he was cut off by one of the fighting pair yelling, "Why don't you just fuck off back to _California_ already?"

_"The team is in fucking Manchester now!"_

Skinny gave them a pained look. "I think I'll take the second line with Dike again, if it's all the same to you."

"No!"

With swiftness that Babe found rather admirable at that time of morning Skinny was suddenly surrounded by three men giving him stern looks. Babe gave Bill a sidelong glance; with a smirk, Bill leaned in and explained, "Muck, Malarkey and Penkala. They're usually the third line. And they're the most superstitious guys on the team – well, after the goalies, anyway."

"Take it back," the redheaded one was demanding. When Skinny looked fit to protest he asserted more firmly, "You take that back _right now_ or we are going to sit on you and _make you_ take it back."

From the looks on their faces, they were utterly serious. With a world-weary sigh and a roll of his eyes, Skinny muttered, "Whatever, fine, I take it back."

"Now jump over the logo," the shorter one said, pointing to the floor in the middle of the room where the parachute and stylized A of the Airborne's logo lied.

Skinny balked and made a face, but his complaints were cut off by a new arrival saying, "You should do it, Skinny."

Carwood Lipton stood behind them, a hint of a smile on his face. Babe flinched and stood a little bit taller, holding tighter to the strap of his bag. He hadn't seen the team's coach since he met with the team to sign his contract last month; in the rush to move to Georgia and settle into the house he shared with Bill and their teammate Joe Toye, a forward, he hadn't really had a lot of time to meet with management – and admittedly, he wasn't really eager to. While Lipton had come off as extremely personable in their initial meeting, the general manager had...left something to be desired.

At any rate, Babe wanted to make the best impression possible on his new coach. The ECHL wasn't the walk-on league that it used to be, and with the team's NHL affiliation with the Thrashers, there was a real potential for upward movement if Babe played his cards right. Seeing as Babe had gone undrafted and had just aged out of major juniors, he was going to use all of the good hands he could get.

As if he had noticed him tense, Lipton glanced over at Babe and he nodded to him, his smile increasing a fraction before he looked back at Skinny and his scowl and said, "Think of it as helping team morale."

Skinny stayed still for a moment, closed his eyes and sighed deeply. When he opened them he grumbled, "Fine," and stalked to the middle of the room, executing a perfect long jump over the logo. There was a smattering of applause as he made his way back to his stall, grumbling to himself all the while.

When he made it back Lipton patted him on the shoulder and thanked him. Skinny seemed to perk up a little at that, at least.

Bill started nudging Babe towards their stalls at the back of the room again, saying, "C'mon, kid. Lip's gonna want us all seated and accounted for before his first pep talk of the season."

"What was all that about?" Babe asked under his breath as they reached their respective stalls. Considering that they would probably be doing a lot of talking and off-ice testing today, they didn't make any moves to change yet.

"Which part of it, Malarkey's line or the soap opera?"

In the middle of the room Webster and Liebgott had progressed to hissing in each other's faces, bodies pressed close enough to be touching from chest to knees. Babe couldn't hear what they were arguing about now, but from the look on the face of Talbert, Lipton's assistant coach who was currently and uncomfortably trying to separate the two, it was probably in Babe's favor not to hear them.

"Both, I guess."

"It's all the same thing anyway," said a man on Bill's right side. He leaned around Bill and stuck out a hand. "I'm Walter Gordon, but the guys all call me Smokey. I'll be in the defense corps with you. You're Heffron, right?"

"Yeah," Babe said, taking his hand, "Edward, but everyone calls me Babe."

"Huh. Well, it's better than Gonorrhea here, that's for sure." He elbowed Bill in the side and then cut off his protests by continuing blithely, "The answer to your question all ties back into the woefully sordid tale of Webster and Liebgott."

"Smokey thinks he's some sort of writer in his spare time," Bill grumbled. The smile Smokey gave him in reply was smug and beatific.

" _As I was saying_ , it all started about two years ago. Webster centered the top line with Skinny and Liebgott as his wingers. They were easily one of the best lines in the division, and then, out of _nowhere_ , Webster gets traded for Norman Dike."

He and Bill both made a point of crossing themselves.

Babe raised an eyebrow. "I take it he wasn't popular?"

Smokey shuddered exaggeratedly and shook his head. "That horror story is for another day. Suffice it to say, we're all very glad he's gone, and we don't want anything to ever bring him back. Ever. Which is why Malarkey's guys wanted Skinny to jump over the logo, it's their own weird version of knocking on wood."

"I was just surprised that Lipton went along with it," Babe said.

Bill and Smokey exchanged a glance before Bill's lips curled into a smile. "Let's just say that Lip more than all of us doesn't want to ever see Norman Dike again. They weren't exactly friendly."

Considering that Babe had heard about the team's somewhat controversial choice to hire a separate general manager this season and therefore knew that the position had previously been occupied by their coach, Lipton, he had more than a few questions about why Lipton would have traded for a guy he disliked so much. But given all of the media speculation about what some saw as Lipton's "demotion" from head coach and general manager to simply head coach and the team's already obvious affection for their coach, he didn't see it as a good idea to bring it up right then.

"So what happened that made Liebgott so mad?" Babe asked instead. "Did Webster ask for a trade and Liebgott was pissed off that he got a crappy center?"

"Nobody knows _why_ Webster was traded," Smokey said, "And pretty much everybody hated having Dike on the team. But that's not what made Lieb so angry. You see, that whole..." He waved a hand in Webster and Liebgott's direction. "... _thing_ that they're doing? The arguing and the close-talking and all of that? They always did that. If they looked like they were happy with each other then something was probably seriously wrong. But somehow they also considered themselves best friends, because they were pretty much inseparable."

"Best friends who wanted to rip each other's faces off," Bill added helpfully.

Smokey nodded. "Yes, exactly. And Lieb didn't play as well without Web as his center, no matter whose line he was on. And that kind of sucked for him, because with Web and Skinny, he'd kind of been getting back into his old form."

He lowered his voice and leaned across Bill so that only the three of them could hear what he said. Babe was getting a feeling he knew who the team gossips were here.

"Don't bring it up or Lieb will probably try to punch your face in, but he used to be in the AHL, that's where he first got signed professionally. And he was good, too, good enough that he even made it to the show once or twice. Everyone thought he had a good chance of really breaking into the NHL for good, and then he just...slumped. Like, the slump to end all slumps."

"The kind of slump where you get sent down to the ECHL?" Babe asked with dawning realization.

Smokey nodded grimly. "Exactly. And the only time he's played like AHL-level Joe Liebgott since then was when he was on Webster's line. When Webster got traded to the Reign two years ago – well, the old Reign, the new Monarchs, whoever the hell they are anymore – anyways, when Web got traded, Lieb went back to being average-Lieb, which, you know, is pretty good for the rest of us, but not as good as we all know he is."

One thing still didn't make sense.

"But why's he so mad at Webster? He couldn't control being traded."

Smokey's face lit up, so he obviously thought it was a good story. Bill, for his part, was just shaking his head.

"It's not the trade that pissed him off – well, the trade pissed him off too, because just about everything does. But what really got him mad was that Webster's contract was up at the end of the season he was traded to the Reign, and he chose to _re-sign_ with them for last year instead of coming back to the Airborne. I've never seen Joe so mad before."

"But why would he do that?"

Smokey shrugged. "Beats me. Nobody knows. But this year he signed with Toccoa again, and now Lieb wants nothing to do with him."

"Which means we all have to listen to them bitch at each other for the rest of the season," Bill said, "Because even if Lip hasn't said it yet, we all know that he's gonna put Web back on a line with Lieb and Skinny. They were our best playoff line the year before the trade and we haven't gone that far in the postseason since that year. So now Lip's gonna want to put the line back together and hope things work out."

Lipton had now approached the two in question and, along with an increasingly distressed looking Talbert, was speaking to them in a low voice. Most of the locker room seemed to be enjoying the spectacle as one of the two appeared ready to disengage and walk away, right before the scrappier looking one hissed some comment that had him spinning around and getting right back in the other man's face, shouting, "It's none of your goddamn business!"

"You being on my team _is_ my fucking business!"

"You can't claim the entire team, Joe!"

"You just fucking _watch me_!"

Glancing from the scene in front of them and back to Bill and Smokey, Babe said carefully, "You know, I just don't see that going so well for them."

Smokey smiled ruefully.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "For as much as they can't stand each other, Web and Lieb make sweet, sweet hockey love together."

Just as he was speaking one of the pair grabbed the other by the shoulders, causing Lipton and Talbert as well as two guys Babe didn't recognize to rush forward in an attempt to separate them before things could get violent.

Babe looked back at his fellow defensemen with a skeptical eye. "Should we, like...go over there and help them or something?"

Smokey scoffed and Bill was already shaking his head and waving his hands around dismissively. "Oh no. No, no, no. Rule number one of hockey, rookie. You _never_ , under any circumstances, get involved in your teammate's personal problems. If it doesn't directly affect you and they aren't actually punching each other, you let them work it out by themselves. If the coaching staff wants to step in, that's their choice, but I for one am not a fan of Liebgott trying to punch me in the throat for getting in his way. I ain't paid enough for that and you certainly aren't."

Now Babe was even more skeptical. "That's really your first rule of hockey? Let your teammates fight each other so you don't have to get involved?"

"Only if they aren't affecting you or hurting anybody," Smokey corrected primly.

Bill nodded. "It might not be the most important rule but it's the first one I'm giving you. Pay attention, rookie. You stick with me and I'll teach you a whole bunch of rules about being a hockey player."

"You do realize that I've been a hockey player pretty much all my life, right?"

Bill patted his shoulder a little roughly and shook his head. "Not like this, you haven't."

Webster and Liebgott's scuffling and the scrum around them trying to separate them resulted in no less than two people stepping foot on the logo; a collective gasp went around the room and Malarkey's line looked ready to have a three-person conniption fit.

The group in the middle of the room froze in place, afraid that moving would somehow make things worse. Finally, Lipton's harried voice rose from the scrum to cut the silence that had fallen across the room.

"Alright, everybody back up. It's going to take more than one jump over the logo to fix this."

As he watched them all follow along quietly, the twenty-minute screaming match abruptly forgotten in the favor of rampant hockey superstition, Babe had to concede that Bill was right. He had definitely never played hockey like this before.

A new figure entered the room as the logo-jumping began, a man hauling a large equipment bag in one hand and a set of goalie sticks in the other. He was pale, his hair such a dark black that it looked blue when it caught the light. When his dark, liquid eyes scanned across the room, Babe felt pinned in his seat, and then inordinately disappointed that the man's gaze didn't stay on him.

When he had sufficiently taken in the scene, the man asked in a low, deep southern drawl, "Do I even want to know what I just walked into?"

Babe couldn't help but stare pathetically, enraptured and stupidly smitten. No, this was definitely entirely new territory for him.

He couldn't wait to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Further hockey notes: Hockey players are notoriously superstitious and will come up with increasingly ridiculous superstitions that MUST BE FOLLOWED or they feel like everything is going to go wrong. Not everybody is superstitious, but enough are (and have enough weird superstitions) that they're kind of known for it. A fairly universal superstition on any team at any level is that it's very bad luck and also disrespectful for anybody to step on the team logo on the floor in the middle of the locker room, to the point where if it's known that many people will be filtering through the locker room (such as a tour for season ticket holders), the team will actually block off the logo to keep people from stepping on it. "Reversing" this bad luck (or any bad luck) by jumping over the logo, however, is something I made up for Malarkey's line and is to my knowledge not a thing.
> 
> In a very confusing turn of affairs, at the end of the 2014-2015 season, the ECHL's Ontario Reign (that's Ontario, California, not Canada), an affiliate of the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, was moved to Manchester, New Hampshire to become the Manchester Monarchs. The current Manchester Monarchs, who were the Kings' AHL affiliate, were then moved to Ontario and became the new Ontario Reign. This was all basically because the Kings wanted their AHL affiliate (their farm team where they pull players from when needed) to be actually in the same time zone as them and not clear across the country in the event that they needed an emergency call-up. For this fic, that means that Webster played half a season with the old Ontario Reign and then the previous full season with the new Manchester Monarchs.
> 
> And lastly, the Atlanta Thrashers are a former NHL team that ceased to exist in 2011 when the team was moved to Winnipeg to become the new Winnipeg Jets (not to be confused with the old Winnipeg Jets, who are the Arizona Coyotes). I was trying to figure who would be Toccoa's NHL affiliate and a little voice whispered in my head, "Make it the Thrashers, it'll be hilarious!", because I find all jokes about the Thrashers to be hilarious. So yes, my fictional ECHL team is affiliated with a defunct NHL team.
> 
> And if you'd like to say hi or if you have any questions, my Tumblr can be found [here](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com).


	2. Ignore Management's Personal Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's day two of training camp, and Babe meets a few members of the front office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had intended to be able to write a chapter of this every few days (hilarious, I know) because I had intended for each chapter to be fairly short. And then school and work heard those plans and were like "lol nah bro." So that obviously didn't work out. But like the hockey season, I have returned! (I wrote this while my team was losing, which is sadly so typical for both of them.)

**2\. Ignore management's personal lives.**

Probably the only thing that made Babe more nervous than skating with his new team for the first time was the man glaring at them from the stands.

Smokey insisted that it wasn't glaring.

"It's just intense staring," he said. "He always looks like that. Back when he was a player they say that coaches would put him out for face-offs because the other player would get so freaked out by his staring that they'd fumble the puck."

"That sounds a lot like glaring to me," Babe mumbled.

As if he could hear him speak, the laser-like focus of Ronald Speirs's not-glare came to fall directly on Babe. Babe hunched his shoulders and turned, pretending to refocus on the drill in front of him and acting like he couldn't feel the general manager's gaze burning through his back.

Babe had met Speirs when he signed with the team; as the general manager, he had been the one to offer Babe a contract. Nothing about that terse, short meeting had done a thing to assuage Babe's discomfort. If anything, he'd guess that Speirs kind of enjoyed the fear he instilled as easy as breathing, which would make sense, given his reputation.

It was Speirs's first season as Toccoa's GM, but his name carried the sort of clout that always made people lower their voices when they talked about him, as if he could hear their excited whispers from across the continent.

Depending on who you asked, Ronald Speirs was either a genius or absolutely insane, typically depending on what teams the person you were talking to was a fan of. If they liked the Nashville Predators or the Minnesota Wild, they thought he was one of the most effective power-forwards of all time. If they didn't, then they would probably tell you that he wasn't fit for human consumption.

(The Colorado Incident had been a very polarizing event.)

As a Preds fan, Smokey was part of the former group, and he looked at Speirs like he hung the moon – at least, when Speirs wasn't glaring at him. As diehard Flyers fans, Babe and Bill didn't really agree.

"He's always been crazy," Bill grumbled, prodding Babe in the shins with his stick. "He was crazy when he played and he's still crazy now. He'd have to be, to take that job. What former NHL 'star' wants to be the GM of a third-tier team?"

"The kind of 'star' that comes in quotation marks." Babe grimaced and skated a few feet away as Bill pulled off his glove and helmet, ran a hand through his sweaty hair, grabbed up his water bottle and poured a more than liberal amount of it over his head.

"He's like a precious flower," Smokey stage-whispered. "He needs to be kept thoroughly watered or he gets grumpy."

"And you need to get your ass out there and skate your damn drills or _I'm_ going to be grumpy," Harry Welsh said, coming up behind Smokey and smacking him on the ass for emphasis.

Smokey waggled his eyebrows at him and snapped off a salute. "Sir, yes, sir!"

Harry curled his lip at him in what was probably a really exhausted attempt at a snarl, but it only made Smokey laugh as he caught up to the end of the line for the drill.

"You two don't get out of it just because you think you're special." Now Harry was eyeing Babe and Bill.

Bill, entirely unbothered even as Babe started skating slowly after Smokey, patted Harry on the shoulder.

"Baby still not sleeping through the night, Welshie?"

"Don't even use the word 'sleep' around me," Harry grumbled, poking at Babe with his stick as he shoved Bill forward. "I swear, Kitty has to be some sort of saint to put up with the both of us. I don't know what I did to deserve her. Come on, move it."

As both the team captain and a defenseman, Harry made it his business to pay extra special attention to the other defensemen on the team. According to everyone he was usually a pretty affable guy, but since his wife had given birth to their first child a month ago and sleep had become an elusive creature, his particular brand of leadership had become a little pricklier, and according to Bill, about five times as overbearing.

"Yes, Dad," Bill drawled, just to receive a particularly sharp shove from behind.

"Don't you start that 'Daddy' crap with me, Gonorrhea," Harry said. "I'm not having that catch on with the boys."

Babe came up behind Smokey just as he started on his own drill. Behind him he could hear Bill saying, "Of course not. Then you'd have to be married to Mama Lip and it would be all kinds of awkward for Kitty."

"I think Kitty would just let us have each other," Harry mumbled.

"Bill, please stop calling me your mother."

Babe nearly tripped over his own skates when he realized that Lipton was standing only a few feet away from them. The man needed to wear a bell or something.

He glanced over at Babe and gave him the same small smile he had yesterday.

"Babe, you can go now." Lipton's voice drew him back to reality. At first Babe thought he was being rather bluntly dismissed until Lipton nodded towards the net in front of them where the goaltender was waiting for the next shot. The dark-haired, dark-eyed Eugene Roe who Babe hadn't been able to string together two words in front of so far.

"Oh, yeah. Okay."

He glanced back over his shoulder into the stands. Speirs was still wearing that same dead-eyed stare, and this time there was no doubt that it was aimed entirely at Babe, judging him, evaluating him.

It was their first day on the ice. Babe wasn't a top goal scorer by any means, but that didn't mean he wasn't expected to impress, even in a drill.

He turned back to the goalie in front of him and skated in on the net.

~~~

There were two men that Babe didn't recognize hanging around the locker room when the team came off the ice. They didn't have press passes, but from the way that Lipton went right over to talk to them and seemed at ease, they were obviously people that he knew. Babe was about to look to Bill and Smokey for an explanation when Lipton called out, "Everyone listen up!"

With a collective sigh and a few grumbles everyone stopped trying to undress and slumped in their stalls, looking towards the three men in the middle of the room.

Instead of speaking, Lipton gestured towards the red-haired man next to him. The man nodded gratefully and cleared his throat.

"Hey guys, I know you're all tired so I'll try to keep this short. As most of you know, my name is Richard Winters, and this is Lewis Nixon." He gestured to the dark-haired man next to him, who looked like he had just woken up and wasn't too pleased about it. The man gave them all a half-assed wave.

"If you don't already know, Nix and I became co-owners of the team last year along with Mr. Carlson and Mr. Tallmadge. We wanted you guys to be the first to know that Mr. Carlson has decided to sell us his stake in the team, meaning that we will be the new majority owners. Starting this year, I am also going to be the team's new President. I know this may seem a little unconventional to some of you and it may take an adjustment period for us to get everything in working order, but I want you guys to know that we are entirely dedicated to this team's success and to finally bringing the Kelly Cup to Toccoa. You'll probably be seeing a lot of us around the rink, so if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to come by any time."

He smiled.

"And with that, I'll let you guys go. Let's have a great season, boys!"

Cheers and applause went up around the room as everyone went back to stripping out of their gear.

"The lovebirds have come home to roost!" George Luz crowed as soon as Winters and Nixon left with Lipton in tow.

A smattering of laughter followed, Frank Perconte saying, "Yeah, and now they're gonna be around all the time to see just how close you can get your ankles to the ice. Christ, I thought I was gonna have to tape them up for you out there."

A series of _"ooohs!"_ followed that, but Luz took it in stride, patting Perconte on the shoulder. "That's alright, Perco, they'll probably be too busy marveling at the world's smallest pylon to watch my skating."

Naturally, that got an even greater reaction, because if Babe had learned one thing in his hockey career, it was that the maturity level never really increased as players got older.

He turned to Bill, who was pulling off his pads, sniffing them and then making a face at them. "Okay, so what's the whole 'lovebirds' thing about?"

He could tell from the way that Smokey's head popped up from Bill's other side that it was probably going to be a good story.

"Okay, so the Airborne used to be owned by Carlson, Tallmadge, and Nixon's father, right?"

Bill flicked Smokey's ear in disgust. "Christ, you don't even give me a _chance_ to answer anymore."

Smokey gave him what was probably his best offended face. "Fine, you tell him then."

" _Well_ ," Bill began with great emphasis, "As _Smokey_ was saying, Nixon's old man used to be the team's third owner. And he also wasn't super fond of his only baby boy, who apparently had a habit for getting himself into trouble. So all the rumors have it that Nixon Senior got fed up and shipped his son off to military school."

"It was West Point," Harry scoffed on Babe's other side, head down as he tugged at his skate laces. "You can't ship your kid off to West Point, they have to earn it. It's not like he totally fuc- screwed up his grades and got a pass because of daddy's money."

"Oh, Welshie, my ears are burning!" Smokey cried out, laying a hand over his forehead and swooning back against his stall.

Harry didn't even spare him a glance. "Kitty says if I don't learn to curb it now I won't be able to stop swearing when the kid's ready to start paying attention to what I have to say. So, I'm giving up cursing."

Bill scoffed loudly. "You've already cursed at me, like, at least five times today!"

Now Harry lifted his head to level Bill with one of the driest looks Babe had ever seen. "Then I'm giving it up _now_."

"I'll take money on how long that one lasts," Bill chuckled, shaking his head. "Anyways, whatever, so Nixon Junior joins the Army and goes to West Point. He's out of dear old dad's hair for a couple of years, all is well, blah blah blah. Junior gets deployed, brings back family honor from the Middle East, everything looks pretty for the society pages."

Smokey popped over Bill's shoulder again, apparently unable to resist.

"And then he comes home from the war, and he brings his new husband with him."

Babe nearly choked on his own spit. " _Husband?_ You can't mean..."

Smokey was nodding, obviously very pleased with Babe's reaction. "Yep. He fell in love with a certain redheaded fellow lieutenant at West Point, they had a romantic honeymoon in Afghanistan, and then they came home to tie the knot in a nice courthouse wedding. It was a minor scandal."

He looked positively thrilled. Bill, on the other hand, did not.

"Yeah, in _New Jersey_. It certainly didn't help things with Nixon's old man, though. He basically disowned Junior, but apparently never got around to changing his will, because when he dropped dead of a heart attack last year, Junior got left his business _and_ his stake in the team."

"Maybe his dad was sorry for being an asshole?" Babe hedged.

Smokey and Bill exchanged glances, and Harry snorted loudly.

"Maybe," Bill said, "But not likely. Between him, Tallmadge and Carlson, they were just about three of the most miserable bastards you could ever meet. Good old boys from Yale, all three of 'em, and they thought they were just the hottest shit to hit Georgia since Sherman's march to the fucking sea."

"That was a really good one," Smokey said, patting him on the arm. Bill smirked like he knew.

Harry was shaking his head as he grabbed his things for the shower. "What I'm shocked about is that Carlson would give up his stake in the team. Not because he just loves hockey so much, because he doesn't, but because he'd never want Nixon and Winters to have majority ownership."

"Maybe he's deciding to be less spiteful in his old age?" Smokey offered.

From the way that everybody laughed, including people who hadn't even been a part of the conversation, Babe would guess that there was probably a very small chance of that being true.

"Whatever," Harry said, "I like Winters. I think he'll be good for the team."

Bill stood as well, holding his own shower kit. "You sure about that? I mean, he and Nixon were in on the decision to take the GM job away from Lip."

It was as if a pall had gone over the locker room, everybody who had heard Bill immediately quieting.

Apparently Lipton's "demotion" wasn't very well-received by the team.

"Well," Harry began slowly. It was obvious that everyone was looking for him to pass judgment on the situation, and seeing as he was their captain, they would probably follow whatever he said.

"Having a separate GM will give Lip more of a chance to focus on the team," Harry said. He spoke with the kind of finality that brooked no argument.

It was also the exact same canned PR line that the media had been reporting all summer.

Harry looked around the room, nodded once, and left for the showers. Quiet conversation sprung up as guys began to get up and follow him, but Babe knew that everyone had the same thing on their minds.

If Winters and Nixon had become the new majority owners, they had probably had a hand in the decision to strip Lipton of his position as both coach and general manager, under the guise of taking some work off of his plate by making him solely the head coach, but entirely due to the Dike trade that seemed to make everybody hiss under their breath. Winters and Nixon would have been involved in the hiring of Ronald Speirs to replace Lipton as GM.

Lipton was their coach, and well-liked enough that more than one guy had referred to him as their mother in Babe's first forty-eight hours with the team (much to Lipton's own chagrin). The team was loyal to him.

With that kind of loyalty, Babe couldn't see Winters and Nixon's presence going over well. And he certainly couldn't see their head coach getting along with their new general manager.

"Do you really think things will go well with Lipton and Speirs?" he asked Bill quietly as people continued filtering out of the room.

Bill shook his head. "Kid, I don't know. But it's not my place to worry about it. Remember what I told you yesterday about staying out of your teammate's shit? Same thing applies to your coach and the front office. You let them work out their own shit and keep your mind on playing hockey, got it?"

It wasn't much of an answer, but it was probably the only answer Babe was going to get. It was probably the only answer anyone could really give.

And then Roe walked by, apparently having decided to strip down to just a towel as he made his way to the showers, and Babe forgot all about whatever drama the front office was having.

He yelped when Bill elbowed him none-too-gently in the ribs. "What the fuck?"

"You ever going to say hello?" Bill nodded towards the door through which Roe had just exited, but from whatever he was doing with his eyebrows it was clear that he meant more than just "saying hello."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Babe made sure to leave the room quickly, if only to keep from having to listen to Bill's laughter.

~~~

Their earlier conversations had been completely forgotten when the team finally left for the day after sitting through lecture sessions with both the team nutritionists and the PR staff. Babe was mostly concerned with taking a nap, trudging behind Bill and Joe while they bickered about what to have for dinner – Joe wanted to try out one of their new nutritionist-approved recipes (nearly all variations on a protein with pasta), while Bill was arguing for why they could still have pizza if the preseason hadn't even started yet.

The three of them were so distracted, in fact, that they nearly missed the scene visible through the door to Lipton's office, which had been left slightly ajar.

Lipton was in his office, which was to be expected. What was more surprising was that Winters and Nixon were also there. What was enough to make the trio freeze in their tracks was that perched with his hip against Lipton's desk, looking down at him and honest-to-God _smiling_ , was Ronald Speirs. All four of them were smiling, and laughing at something, and it looked like Nixon was actually pouring _whiskey_ and everybody looked like they were getting along swimmingly.

"Okay, what the fuck," Joe said, voicing all of their thoughts.

Bill looked ready to respond and then, like the good alternate captain he was, had the wherewithal to grab Babe and Joe and hustle them down the corridor and out the exit before he gave his answer.

He cut Babe off before he could speak.

"Okay, rookie, you remember what I told you earlier about how you should stay out of the front office's shit just like you stay out of your teammate's shit? I'm making an amendment to that. Here's your new rule: Ignore management's personal lives. Don't ask questions. It's better for your health if you just don't think about it too much."

" _I_ have a lot of fucking questions," Joe interjected.

"Yeah, well you're not a rookie, you're supposed to know the fucking rules by now. Ignore management's personal lives." He slapped Joe upside the head, and if it was anyone but Bill who did it Babe was pretty sure Joe would have broken their hand in retaliation. As it was, their bickering increased at least tenfold.

Babe didn't mind. At this point, he wasn't sure he even _wanted_ to know what was going on with Lipton and the front office. And at any rate, Bill had been right earlier: despite the bunch of old maids that his teammates were turning out to be, they weren't actually there to gossip. And no matter what was going on between Lipton and Speirs, Babe still had to impress them if he wanted to stay with this team.

He didn't have any room for distractions.

He repeated that to himself when he looked across the parking lot and saw Roe in deep conversation with his backup, Ralph Spina.

No distractions.

Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this hockey fic will eventually include actual hockey and not just literal locker room gossip. And please don't ask me what kind of skating drill they're doing here that allows them to stand around chatting for so long because I don't know. A shooting drill. A shooting drill that they are all slacking off on during their first day on the ice. As you do.
> 
> More hockey miscellany from this chapter:
> 
> \- I don't know how big of a thing this is in other sports but hockey players love pouring their water bottles out over their heads. Some just squirt their faces and some dump the whole thing over their heads, down their backs, wherever. And goalies need regular watering during every break in play.
> 
> \- Hockey players totally play grab-fanny with the man in front of them All. The. Time. 
> 
> \- Nicknames! Hockey nicknames are a pretty unique thing, if uninspired. You take part of somebody's last name (sometimes first name but only if the last name isn't conducive to it), typically the first syllable, and you add -y/-ie, -sy/-zy, -er, -s, or -o to the end of it. Hutton is Hutts, Sharp is Sharpy, Stamkos is Stammer, etc. Nicknames are A Thing in hockey. Pretty much everyone has one. So the way that I'm doing this fic, if a guy already has a canon nickname (or a fanon nickname), I'll use that, but if they don't, like Harry, then I'm giving them a hockey nickname. A couple guys in the fic will have them. And in the same vein as hockey nicknames: Dad/Daddy is a pretty common nickname in the NHL and I'd imagine in other leagues as well. And no, it's not just assigned to the oldest and most fatherly guy on the team. (See: Daddy himself, Jason Demers, who has no kids and is called Daddy by many men older than he is)
> 
> \- I tend to drop a lot of hockey slang without remembering that not everybody knows what it is. If you want to read up on it, [these](http://thehockeywriters.com/how-to-talk-like-a-hockey-player/) [sites](http://grantland.com/features/sean-mcindoe-nhl-grantland-dictionary/) have some pretty good lists, though I disagree with some of their terms as being dated or just not used by most people (or anyone who isn't a beer leaguer over 50), but whatever. For the sake of this chapter, Perco essentially calls Luz a bender, i.e. someone who is such a bad skater that their ankles bend sideways (hence offering to tape his ankles to hold them stiff), and Luz calls Perco a pylon (synonymous with calling him a stanchion), which means that you're just a tall lump on the ice who doesn't move or have any purpose - so another name for a useless player, though usually one who is much larger than Perco.
> 
> \- I've done a lot of checking up on the structures of ECHL teams and it seems they play fast and loose with people having multiple roles in a team, so while it's not common, it's not unheard of to have a combination coach/GM, or for an owner or CEO to also be president of the team. In the same vein, "front office" refers to everyone involved in hockey management and administration other than the coaching staff.
> 
> \- And lastly, I was trying to figure what special weirdos could be the goalies, and then it hit me: _medics_.
> 
> If there's anything I missed that's still confusing you, as always you can ask in the comments section or [message me on tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com).


	3. Respect Your Elders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe learns some important lessons about why you always listen to your veteran defensemen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no real excuse for how long this has taken other than that real life is a bitch, but I want to thank each and every one of you who kudos'd or commented or dropped me a note to let me know how much you liked the fic, because you guys are amazing and lovely and I want to thank you all so much for your support.

**3\. Respect your elders.**

"Listen up, Peanut."

A hand smacked the back of Babe's head.

Peanut, he had come to learn, was him.

This entirely ignored the fact that Johnny "Peewee" Martin, one half of the team's grinding defensive pair, was one of the shortest guys on the team, and certainly shorter than Babe himself. Nobody, least of all the rookie, wanted to be the one to point that out.

Johnny's stare was nearly as terrifying as Speirs's. Babe almost wanted to see them in a staring contest, but it also might cause the world to implode out of sheer rage and general disdain, so, maybe not.

"You're not listening."

Another smack.

Johnny was also very liberal with his own personal form of "physical conditioning." It just turned out that his "conditioning" was less about getting in shape for the season and more of a Pavlovian nature.

"Jesus Christ, knock it off already, I'm listening!"

And there was the glare again. Babe tried not to shrink back, but the helpless look he sent Smokey and Bill's way was only met with snickers. He glanced at Bull, Johnny's d-partner and nearly twice his size, but the man only shook his head with an amused smile of his own.

Apparently schadenfreude was a big thing on this team.

"Then what did I just say?"

"I don't know, something about Greenville's top line – why are you hitting me, I didn't even do anything!"

"Exactly. You didn't _listen_ , which is why Greenville is going to score directly off of every single faceoff in our zone, because you didn't pay attention when I told you that that's their signature move, and so you won't be _paying attention_ when their center passes back to his winger and they immediately score."

Babe rubbed the back of his head, taking a wary step away from Johnny. "Okay, but if literally everybody knows that they do that, wouldn't the goalies already know to be prepared?"

Johnny's expression begged for murder. "Bull, smack him for me please?"

Babe wasn't quite fast enough to dodge that one.

"Thank you. Now, Peanut, I know this is your first time playing with the big boys, but I think even you should understand by now that there's only so much a goalie can do. That's why he has _defensemen_ around, to keep the puck from ever getting close enough to him that he has to make a save. Doc's great, Doc can stand on his head all day long if he has to, but he shouldn't have to, because you're his defenseman and you're supposed to be _defending him_ , especially from set plays that we all knew ahead of time the other team was going to make. You're a defenseman, you're a goalie's best friend. Don't leave your best buddy hanging out to dry because you couldn't be bothered to do your damn job."

The embarrassing part wasn't even that Babe had been chewed out by a veteran teammate for something he'd barely done; no, the real reason he started to blush was because Johnny had suggested that Babe was somehow friends with Gene Roe, which wasn't quite possible because Babe had been avoiding having to speak with him like an absolute loser out of a fear that he'd somehow say the wrong thing, and he couldn't even put into words why he cared so much about Gene's opinion.

"You know," Smokey said, crossing his arms and looking across the ice to consider Gene as he prepped his crease, skating back and forth to mark up the ice in front of the net, "I'm pretty sure the posts and the crossbar are Doc's best friends."

Well, that certainly let the wind out of his sails, but Babe had crept on Gene enough in the past week of training camp to know that he was definitely the type of goalie to talk to his goal posts and pat his crossbar in thanks when a shot rang off it instead of ricocheting into the net, so Smokey probably wasn't too far from the truth.

"Be that as it may," Johnny said, prodding Babe harshly in the chest, "You need to pay attention, or you're not going to last long, kid. So listen up."

Babe forced himself to pay attention to Johnny's impromptu defense clinic, knowing that despite its rather caustic delivery, it was all with good intentions. This was their last practice before their first game of the preseason tonight against the Greenville Swamp Rabbits – the first game of Babe's professional career. It was in both his and the team's best interests that he get to know the workings of the opponent's team some time before puck drop tonight, and reviewing tape of the other team from last season could only teach you so much.

But despite all of that, he still found his attention drifting back across the ice to where Malarkey's line had started taking potshots on Gene – and Gene kept every one out with an almost prejudicial fervor.

The hand on the back of his head felt about the same.

"Shit, what?" he yelped, rubbing his head once again.

Johnny's glare told him that they both knew exactly what he'd done.

It was going to be a long day.

~~~

Morning skate was, perhaps, even longer, though Babe knew logically that they were on a tight schedule and it couldn't have actually taken that long. Something about being trailed by the eagle eyes of his fellow defensemen, out to make sure he paid attention to his goalie but not _too much_ attention, in addition to the already anxiety-provoking stares of Lipton and Speirs, made the minutes crawl by like years. Babe was almost thankful for their skating drills, just to take his mind off of whatever-the-hell it was stuck on.

God, but he had to get his head out of his ass if he was going to be ready for tonight. He'd even take a bag skate at this point if it would get his head in the game.

Bill was naturally entirely unsympathetic.

"I told you, you should have just talked to him," he said, shaking his head and tsking loudly.

"Shut up," Babe hissed, shoving past him and getting in the back seat of Bill's car.

Babe had learned quickly that, as the rookie, he had absolutely no say in anything, and should expect to kowtow to a veteran player's will at every turn. "Respect your elders, kid," Bill had said.

"That means get your ass in the back," Joe had translated.

Joe looked pretty terrifying. There were rumors that he had brass knuckles, and Babe was almost sure that he taped his hands and wrists even before practices.

Babe got his ass in the back seat.

They were headed back home for a pregame nap, and then they had to be back at the rink in two hours to get the bus to Greenville. Babe was still so out of sorts, he wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep anyway. He'd never been much for it in juniors, but based on all of his talks over the past week Lipton seemed to swear by it, so Babe was going to have to give it his best shot.

"Who's he talking to?" Joe asked, getting in the passenger seat next to Bill.

"Doc." Bill took a concerningly brief glance over his shoulder and backed out of his parking space. "Babe's got a thing for him."

Babe didn't exactly choke on his own saliva, but it was a pretty close thing.

"I- what are you- I don't have a- _what_?"

Joe nodded as if this was proof. "Oh, yeah, I can see it."

" _What_?"

"Yeah, so tell the kid, you gotta talk to him, y'know? You can't even think about getting something started till you talk to him."

"Get _what_ started?"

"But Babe here won't even say two words to the guy. Doc's gonna think the rookie's got a problem with him, all the staring he does when he's never even gone over to say hello."

"I don't stare _that_ much- do you think he noticed?"

Bill and Joe exchanged a glance that was far too smug and entertained, and then both looked over their shoulders to glance at Babe. Babe's expression was somewhat more terrified, but that's because they were currently driving forty miles an hour and Bill thought that keeping your eyes on the road was more of a suggestion than a rule.

"Man, I can't decide if that's cute or pathetic," Joe said, settling back in his seat.

"It's pathetic," Bill informed him helpfully.

" _It_ doesn't exist!"

Bill and Joe shared another of their meaningful eyes-off-the-road looks. "Yeah, okay."

At that point in time, Babe should have realized that just about nothing that day was going to go his way.

~~~

Babe had napped just as well as he'd expected to (read: not at all), and despite the opportunity provided by the hour-long bus ride, he could never calm himself enough to actually fall asleep.

Oh well. Napping had never really been his thing anyway. Neither had all of this nervous energy, but he figured it was to be expected.

New league, new Babe.

Or maybe just the same old Babe, but with new worries about blowing this opportunity, because the ECHL wasn't just his only chance at getting to the show one day – it was pretty much his last chance before either becoming basically semi-pro (as if the ECHL wasn't close enough already with the pittance they received; nobody was in this league to make money) or hanging up his skates. He wasn't like Harry, a journeyman NHL defenseman who decided to take a pay cut and play in the ECHL to keep his wife close to her family instead of moving to Europe when NHL teams stopped calling. He was undrafted and had never been a huge star in juniors; he frankly considered himself lucky just to get the opportunity to play for Toccoa.

And it would be so, so easy to screw things up. Or to get himself scratched for the foreseeable future. Though the ECHL allowed for twenty-man rosters, only eighteen players were allowed to be iced per game, two of them goalies. While teams could choose who was scratched each game at their own discretion, Bill had told him that in general the last few years Lipton had opted to scratch two forwards every game from what would constitute their fourth line, but there would be nothing to stop him from scratching a defenseman, particularly if Webster's return brought back the team's offense and forwards were deemed more important than defensemen.

Babe couldn't give Lipton any excuse to scratch him. Sure, happening once or twice wouldn't kill him, especially in the preseason, but if it became a regular thing-

Well. That would pretty much put a nail in the coffin of any hopes he ever had of an AHL call-up, let alone anything more.

So all he had to do was-

"Do you always look like this?"

The empty seat next to him on the bus was suddenly filled, and given the sheer size of Buck Compton, some of Babe's seat was filled, too.

"Like what?"

"Like a cat that just got tricked into eating a lemon – yes, that's the one!"

Babe grimaced and tried to clear his expression.

Buck Compton was a bit of an oddity for the team. He was the only player other than Babe who was new to the team, but he was also the only person other than Gene to be signed to an NHL entry-level contract. Buck had made headlines by continuing to play college hockey until he earned his degree despite being a promising second-round Thrashers prospect, and then, he'd made the news yet again when a year after the Thrashers' rights to him expired, he chosen to sign with them anyway.

This year was the second year of Buck's contract, and after spending the past season in the AHL, he was expected to begin there again with a strong likelihood of finally receiving an NHL call-up if he played his cards right. Fate apparently hadn't liked Buck's cards, because he'd injured himself in training over the summer and required surgery to repair his knee. After months of physical therapy, Buck was ready to skate again, but powers that be had felt that he was best suited to start his season off with a conditioning stint in the ECHL, after which he would return to the AHL and start fighting for a spot on Atlanta's roster.

Babe had never heard of such a thing before, but it wasn't his life, and Buck didn't seem all that bothered by it. Given his general confidence and cheerful personality, Babe would wager that Buck wasn't bothered by much of anything.

Lucky him.

"Yeah, you're still doing it."

Babe frowned automatically.

"Doing what?"

"The face, Heffron. I feel like we've had this discussion. What's wrong?"

Babe raised an incredulous eyebrow. He wasn't sure what Buck's angle was, or why he'd have one, but he didn't want to go there.

Buck was a second-round draft pick. Buck played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Buck was automatically Toccoa's top left wing the moment he was assigned to the team. Buck was assured a spot in the AHL as soon as he was deemed fit, and had a good chance at the NHL too.

It wasn't that Babe was a little jealous of him.

It was just that Babe was ridiculously, heinously jealous of him, and Buck showing any form of concern for him only made him feel guilty for that jealousy.

Couldn't he just let Babe stew in his envy in peace?

"I'm fine," he said, doing his best to express the same sentiment with his face.

Buck nodded as if that was exactly what he'd expected to hear.

"I'm a little nervous, personally. It sounds stupid, doesn't it? I've played in front of bigger crowds with bigger stakes before. But, you know." He shrugged. "It's the start of the season. Everyone's got preseason jitters and something to prove."

Babe eyed him warily.

"I'm fine," he said again, in case Buck hadn't gotten it the first time.

"I know," Buck said. "And that's okay. I'm not, and that's okay too. We've all got something riding on this."

Babe's eyes narrowed against his will. "What are you saying?"

Buck's smile was much too kind for how prickly Babe was being towards him.

He leaned in closer and put a hand on Babe's shoulder.

"I'm saying that you're not the only one who wants to make a good impression tonight, and you don't have to worry because you're going to do fine. God knows, I got on the ice for the first time last season and felt like I'd forgotten how to skate, but once the puck drops, everything falls into place and it's all just hockey again, and we've been playing hockey all our lives. You'll be fine."

He patted Babe's shoulder, had the audacity to _wink_ at him, and jumped out of his seat, pushing his way back towards the front of the bus where he'd been hanging out with Luz earlier.

Babe blinked once, twice.

Well. He could see why there was talk of making Compton captain of Atlanta's currently captain-less AHL-affiliate if he didn't get an NHL call-up any time soon. The media would eat him up with a spoon and he'd enjoy every minute of it.

Despite himself, though, Babe couldn't help but feel more settled.

Damn it, Buck was way too likeable.

~~~

Buck's confidence in Babe paid off.

For a while.

Babe nearly thought he'd vomit all through the warm-up skate and even during the national anthem, but the moment Lip tapped him on the shoulder and sent him and Bill over the boards and into the fray, he forgot about all of his fears and anxieties and misgivings and remembered why he was here in the first place.

He wasn't just playing for the Toccoa Airborne because it was a good career opportunity. He was playing for the Toccoa Airborne because he loved hockey, and he really, really wanted to win.

It felt like everything fell into place after that. Sometimes literally, when Babe executed a check on one of Greenville's forwards that sent the whole crowd to their feet.

(What sent Babe to his feet was when Johnny, who was apparently gunning for most hits on the team, hip checked an oncoming Greenville player into his own bench. For someone so small, he was startlingly effective.)

The score was tied 2-2 with less than two minutes to go in the period. The first goal had been scored early on by Buck, a beautiful deke around the defense proving that he wouldn't need to be on that conditioning stint for long. Greenville had responded with two of their own in the second (Babe was just quietly pleased that he hadn't been on the ice for those), but Toccoa had tied it up at the start of the third when Liebgott scored on a no-look pass from Webster that had the five Toccoa fans in attendance losing their minds.

Everything fell apart when Gene made a spectacular glove save and the play was called dead. Everyone readied for a faceoff to the left of the net. Babe got into position as Joe squared up against a Greenville center, ready to catch the puck should Joe win the faceoff and pass it back in his direction. He thought he heard someone say something behind him, but before he could process what it was, the puck was dropped, Greenville won the faceoff, their right winger got the puck, and-

The sound of the goal horn was deafening in Babe's ears, but not quite enough to drown out the furious cursing behind him.

 _"What the fuck!"_ someone was shouting, and it took Babe a moment to realize that it was coming from Gene.

It took him a moment longer to realize that it was being directed towards him.

"I, uh-"

He made the mistake of skating closer to Gene, which got him a furious goaltender entirely unafraid to get in his face.

"What the fuck was that? You fucking screened me!"

"What? I didn't-"

"You fucking did! I told you to move over and you didn't, you just fucking stood there and screened me when you _knew_ they were gonna put it on net!"

Eugene Roe had a deep southern twang that Babe had tried embarrassingly hard to catch scraps of all week. It was the first time that it was directed at Babe, and it was so Gene could rip him a new one, because shit, this was the one set play that Johnny had warned him about, the _one play_ that everyone knew Greenville would always try to make if the opportunity arose, and he'd completely forgotten about it.

"I'm sorry," he stuttered, "I didn't think-"

"That's right, you didn't think! I would've had that if I could've fucking _seen_ it!"

"I- I'm so sorry, I-"

Gene shook his head in obvious disgust.

"What-the-fuck-ever, get back to the damn faceoff."

As if Babe's face wasn't already red enough to match his hair, he realized that everyone was indeed squaring up at center ice for the faceoff. He skated over quickly, trying his best not to make even more of an embarrassment of himself.

The last minute or so of the game yielded no further goals for Toccoa, even when Gene was pulled for the extra attacker, and when the final buzzer sounded, the team skated off in silence. Babe made sure to keep his head down; he couldn't stand the thought of having to meet everyone's eyes knowing how royally he'd just fucked up his first game.

As he passed Harry on his way to the dressing room, the captain stopped him with a hand to his chest.

"Hey," he said quietly, "It's only the preseason. Mistakes happen. Don't be too hard on yourself."

Babe swallowed harshly and glanced back over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening.

"It's my fault," he said, "I didn't listen to Johnny, he _warned_ me what they would do and I got in Gene's way and I-"

"And you're going to learn from it and not do it again next time, right?" Harry was asking a question, but his pedantic, dry tone showed that disagreement was not an option.

Babe nodded fervently. "Yeah, of course. I'm not – it won't happen again."

"Good." Harry clapped him on the arm. "That's what I like to hear. And don't take Doc's words too harshly. He gets really...caught up in the game. He's ripped my head off more than once, and for a lot less. Until you get the 'you oughta know' speech, you're not in any real trouble."

"Oh, uh, yeah. Okay."

When Harry only nodded, Babe took that as his cue to leave, but he was stopped by Harry's hand around his wrist. When he glanced back, there was something nearly impish about Harry's tired face.

"Kid?"

"Yeah?"

"You should still go talk to him. I mean, probably not right now, because he might actually try to eat you alive, but if you give him some time to cool off, he'll come around."

"I don't – why does everyone think I want to talk to him so badly?"

The smile that Harry wore was downright mischievous.

"Because you're the only one who calls him Gene."

~~~

**3b. Rookies carry the bags.**

Babe felt like he was doing some extended walk of shame as he went through the process of showering, changing, and packing up his gear. He kept his head down, but he could still feel people's eyes on him. He couldn't bear to glance in Gene's direction; it was bad enough trying to get through his routine without getting a round of angry 'I-told-you-so's from his fellow defensemen (sans Harry).

He nearly jumped when a bag was thrown down at his feet. He glanced up and met Johnny's unimpressed, crossed-arms stare.

"I...uh...what's this?"

Johnny made a point of looking down at his bag and then back up at Babe.

"It's a bag, Peanut. Because apparently you struggle in listening comprehension, I'm going to ask you this: have you ever heard of respecting your elders?" Without waiting for a response, he said, "Great. Here's another one for you: rookies carry the bags."

With that he turned and walked off, grumbling the whole way. Babe looked down at his abandoned bag for a long moment before looking back up; when he did, Bull was nearby, looking way too entertained.

"Chin up, kid," he said, tapping his fist against Babe's jaw. "He likes you."

Babe let his disbelieving expression speak for him; Bull only laughed.

"C'mon now, if he hated you, he wouldn't have tried so hard. And he certainly wouldn't have let you carry his bag."

" _Let_ me?"

Bull cast him a smile that was nearly fond as he said, "Well, sure. He's gotta like you if he's letting you carry a bag full of his stuff. If you hated each other, God knows what you'd do with it."

He threw down another bag at Babe's feet. "I'd say you're getting damn near popular."

He walked off, leaving Babe standing there gaping with a growing collection of equipment bags around his feet.

 _Well_ , Babe supposed, attempting to gather up the two bags plus his own, _it could be worse_.

Gene stalked by him towards the bus, his face dark and his posture stiff. He had a white-knuckled vice grip on his own bag.

Well. Not that much worse.

Maybe it would be best if he just started referring to Roe as "Doc," too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, you guys said you wanted Babe and Gene to finally talk...
> 
> Now the scenario that the final play is in does not necessarily mean that Babe's response should have been "gotta make sure I get my ass out of the goalie's face," because he very well could have responded by trying to bodily block the shot, but he kind of just stood there dumbfounded and he blocked Gene's line of sight (that's what screening is, when a player from either team gets in the goalie's way - opposing players will try to do this without getting a goalie interference penalty), ultimately leading to Gene being unable to make the save. You can see a similar play [here](https://www.nhl.com/video/stempniak-scores-off-the-faceoff/t-283283998/c-48384803) where Teuvo Teravainen (86 for the Carolina Hurricanes) wins the faceoff and passes back to his winger Lee Stempniak (21) who scores. Notice that New York Islanders defenseman Calvin de Haan (44) is kind of in the way of his goalie Thomas Greiss. It's not overt screening (he was most likely trying to block the puck with his body) but it was the closest example I could find of what happened in the fic where the defenseman basically mucked the whole thing up. (I watched far too many goal off the faceoff videos just trying to find this one.)
> 
> Going through the rest of my notes for this fic: a grinder is someone known for their physical, checking play and not so much for scoring points. The Greenville Swamp Rabbits are a real ECHL team; if I haven't mentioned it yet, while this fic will feature real ECHL teams, any players mentioned to be on the teams will be fictionalized, in part because I really am just not super familiar with the ECHL. In the same vein, I don't know the game-day routine of ECHL players, i.e. if they would take a nap and then take a bus, etc, but I'm pretty sure most of the readers don't know this either, so I'm not going to cry myself to sleep for not being able to figure it out (and trust me, I looked).
> 
> A bag skate is usually a punishment where the players do repetitive, fast, hard skating drills again and again until they're physically exhausted. It's not super common but your coach might make you do them if he's really pissed off (this happens in the movie Miracle, for those who have seen it). The pregame nap is a real thing where players sleep for an hour or two before a game; research claims it may have no real benefit, but it becomes such a part of their routine that many of them swear by it and feel that their whole game is thrown off without the nap (that whole superstition thing again). It's common in the NHL but I'm not sure about other levels of hockey. Taping your hands and wrists is only really done to help you hit harder in fights, which is why Babe is hesitant to get on Joe's bad side (especially if he's doing it for practices). In both the NHL and ECHL there is a penalty for taping your hands, but only if you get into a fight where you make the other guy bleed and you're wearing tape on your hands, in which case you get a game misconduct. Otherwise I couldn't find anything in the rules saying you can't still tape your hands.
> 
> North American players are typically drafted into the NHL at the age of 18/19. Buck's case is odd because he's drafted by Atlanta, which means they have his signing rights for three years. He goes to play hockey for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers (a real, very successful team in both its men's and women's teams) and plays for four years, meaning that Atlanta's claim on him expires, and then he signs a three-year entry-level contract with them as an unrestricted free agent not because they have his rights but because he wants to. It's conceivable that Buck would be playing in the AHL. Would he be sent down to the ECHL (this can be done sans waivers because he's on an ELC) for a conditioning stint in the preseason? Pretty much assuredly not, but that's why this is fiction.
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rm756m8W1c) is a hip check into the bench, and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJRZULaUF-8) is a standard hip check as performed by the master, Dan Hamhuis. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jbqh-6jjeg) is an example of a no-look pass, which is usually an impressive feat, except the Sedins have magical Swedish twin telepathy on their side.
> 
> Pulling the goalie is when the goaltender is called to the bench mid-play so that the team can put an extra forward on the ice. This is usually done during a delayed penalty or when there is little time left in the game and the team needs to score to tie and go to overtime; the latter is a gamble because the team has an extra forward, but also an empty net that's an open target for the other team.
> 
> That's all I have on my (extensive) list but as always let me know if you have any questions!
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com)


	4. Goalies Are Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe learns a thing or two about goaltenders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you everyone for all the support! You guys are the best. 
> 
> Also, all of my faves have been traded away in the past 48 hours because hockey is a cruel, terrible sport and I 0/10 recommend becoming a hockey fan, just don't do it. Save yourselves. (In other words, Happy Trade Deadline Day, everybody!)
> 
> As per usual, nothing has been edited, etc, etc.

**4\. Goalies are weird.**

Babe wasn't very keen on trying to talk with Roe again. After the way that their first encounter had gone (and the way that Roe had been on the bus afterwards, with his hood up, headphones in and a glare that spelled death for anyone who tried to approach him that wasn't Spina), Babe didn't really think he could improve Roe's opinion of him by giving him an impromptu demonstration of how well he could introduce his foot to his mouth.

He figured it would be best to lay low and give Roe his own space and maybe one day by the end of the season Roe would be willing to say hello to him when he saw him in the hallway. It was essentially how he would deal with a cat: let them do their own thing and they'll come to you if they want your attention.

(Eugene Roe, by all accounts, did not want Babe's attention.)

Personally, Babe thought he was taking his new lease on life rather well: it had been a day and one practice since they played Greenville, and Babe hadn't looked at Roe once. That wouldn't have been a feat, except in comparison with how much time Babe had spent looking at Roe previously. Which, to be honest, was likely way too much anyways, so this was probably for the best.

Or at least, Babe thought so. His teammates, on the other hand, seemed set on disagreeing.

"He's not really mad at you," Bill was saying, rolling his eyes as they did their stretches on the ice at morning skate. They had a game against the South Carolina Stingrays that night, the second and final game of Toccoa's preseason. "He gets pissy in the moment and then he goes home and sleeps it off and he's fine. It's just a goalie thing."

"I've had goalies mad at me before, Bill. They don't get over it that easily. When I started out in Saginaw an own goal deflected in off my skate and our starting goalie never forgave me for it. We made the playoffs that year and he was still trying to slash my calves whenever I got anywhere near the net."

Bill paused in his stretches and stared at him. "Okay, no, that's weird. Smokey, is that weird?"

"That's weird," Smokey confirmed from Babe's other side.

"Well, it's true, and so I know better than to go poke at a goalie who doesn't like you."

"Of course he's not going to like you if you try to poke him on the first date," Bill said, waggling his eyebrows.

" _Je-sus Christ!_ " Harry groaned as he skated by, head thrown back in exasperation. "I know it's your nickname, Gonorrhea, but can you try to keep the actual verbal VD that comes out of your mouth away from the rest of us?"

"They're called STDs now," Bill shot back snidely, like that was relevant and he'd somehow won the conversation.

"Actually, they're called STIs, because infection is a more general term than disease."

Everyone turned slowly to look at Shifty Powers, the quiet right wing with a deadly accurate shot.

"Uh, thanks, Shift," Bill said slowly. Shifty blushed and looked down, smiling slightly, and then nodded to them all and skated off towards Buck and Perco.

The defensemen looked at each other.

"Well, what do you know," Bill said, "Shifty's an expert in dick diseases."

"He's just actually smart," Smokey countered, "Unlike you, because I'm pretty sure they don't count _having_ an STD as 'experiential learning.'"

"Now you hold on a second, I ain't ever-"

Babe took that moment to take his stretches elsewhere, because he frankly had more of a desire to make pleasant small talk with Ronald Speirs than he did to know a single thing about anybody's potential disease-status, past, present, or otherwise.

At least it got them off the topic of Roe, because he was the one thing Babe wanted to talk about even less. Particularly the topic that Bill kept hinting at with all of the subtlety and elegance of a drunken kangaroo, because he didn't even want to _talk_ to Roe, let alone think about anything like – like _that_ , when they weren't even _friends_ , and-

"Who kicked your puppy, Peanut?" someone asked in a tone that was half mocking condescension and half genuine-sounding concern.

Babe jumped when he realized that the empty patch of ice he had settled in to was now occupied by Johnny and Bull on either side of him. God, but the guys on this team took the idea of being a cohesive d-corps a little too seriously.

"I'd say he looks like somebody kicked _him_ ," Bull replied, looking meaningfully around Babe at Johnny. Johnny made some over-the-top tsking sounds and it was all Babe could do not to groan in exasperation like Harry.

"I'm fine," he said, putting an extra emphasis into his stretches to prove just how focused he was on _not talking about this_.

"That's not the face of somebody who's fine, Peanut. That's the face of somebody who's hiding from his feelings."

At this point Babe was pretty sure that at least half of everything Johnny said was going to be mocking him.

"I said I'm _fine_ ," he repeated. "Christ, what do I have to do to get you guys off my back and let me play some fucking hockey?"

Johnny and Bull both made a show of putting their hands up and shifting away from him.

"Whoa, calm down there, buttercup, don't take your shit out on us."

Babe shot him a narrow-eyed look.

"I thought I was 'Peanut,'" he grumbled.

"Oh, don't worry, you can be both. Anybody can be buttercup, but you're my only Peanut." Johnny's eyes were wide and sincere, and Babe was shocked that he hadn't yet choked on the sheer levels of sugary bullshit that he somehow managed to spout off on such a regular basis.

Bull, for his part, was trying not to choke on his laughter.

"All that aside," Bull said, being the more diplomatic of the two, "You've got one of the worst poker faces I've ever seen, and I've played poker against Frank Perconte. You want to tell us what's going on? Because we've got a game tonight, and I know you're gonna want it to turn out better than the last one, and that's not gonna happen if you're too caught up in your own head."

Babe blinked a few times in sheer surprise; Johnny was shaking his head and scoffing.

"Full of fucking folksy wisdom, you are, Bull. But he's not wrong. What is it, the dream team over there?" Johnny gestured with his head towards Smokey and Bill, who were now in a deep and very loud discussion about if chlamydia was an infection or a flower.

"What? No, they're just fucking gross, so I wanted to move away."

Johnny made a show of nodding along. "Right. And did you talk to Doc yet?"

"What? No, I didn't talk to Roe, because I don't need him to rip my head off again."

Johnny and Bull exchanged glances.

"He didn't call him Gene," Johnny said.

Bull nodded in commiseration. "It's bad."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Babe asked, giving up all pretenses of stretching and getting to his feet. The other two followed suit.

"It _means_ ," Johnny said, prodding one of his stupidly sharp fingers in Babe's direction, "That you're moping, and I don't have time or space for moping on my team."

"You're not even an alternate-"

" _On my team_ , Heffron."

"I'm not _moping_ , Christ, I don't even know the guy! I'm giving him space!"

Babe may not have been on a professional hockey team before, but he had played enough hockey to know that your teammates probably shouldn't be that interested in what was going on in your literally nonexistent relationship with your other teammate.

They all probably needed to get out more.

He didn't know what Johnny was going to say, because Lip blew his whistle to get everyone's attention, bless him, and Babe didn't have to hear it.

Lip got them set up practicing odd-man rushes, and Babe would admit only to himself that he was relieved to be defending Spina – or Spinner, as the team had unanimously dubbed him.

"Some guys in college called me Spider," Spina told him with an affable smile during a break in play. He was, Babe quickly learned, a very chatty guy. He was also a Philly guy, which immediately put him on Babe's good side.

Spina wasn't on an NHL contract like Roe, but that didn't seem to bother him in the least. He didn't even care that Roe was expected to get the lion's share of starts: "I'm just happy to play the game," he said.

He and Shifty, Babe decided, were both far too nice to be on this team of salty bastards. This became even more evident when practice had to be paused so Webster and Liebgott could be separated from another screaming match.

"Do you want to see my mask?" Spina asked when he took it off to get a drink. Babe had nothing better to do, seeing as he didn't want to get anywhere near the Webster and Liebgott Show, and shrugged.

"Okay, sure."

Spina was all too pleased to show him his mask, army green like their jerseys with a spider motif – "The parachutes are made out of a spider's web, right? Like spinning the web?" – and then on the back, the crowning jewel: a literal crown, colored with the Swedish flag.

"It's for King Henrik," Spina said, and there were stars in both his eyes and his voice, "I couldn't reference the Rangers because they're not our affiliate, but I could reference Sweden, and it works, you know? The crown for Sweden, and because he's the king?"

Babe nodded slowly. "Uh, yeah, I can see that...you've got all your bases covered there. So Lundqvist is your favorite, huh?"

"Yeah! Well, my favorite current goalie. Hextall is the best of all time."

Now that was something Babe could get behind.

"So, uh, does Roe agree with you?"

He could tell from Spina's moue of distaste what that answer was.

"No. He thinks that _Hasek_ is better. Can you imagine? _Hasek_ over Hextall?"

As a hockey fan, Babe could logically understand why somebody might think that Dominik Hasek was a better goaltender than Ron Hextall. But as a Philadelphian, there was no contest.

"Disgraceful," he agreed, shaking his head.

Spina nodded fervently. "I know, right? And he thinks that _Carey Price_ is better than Lundqvist. Like, yeah, Lundqvist has been having a hard time lately, but he's still the best!"

Babe didn't really have a horse in that race (he kind of agreed with Roe, to be honest), but he nodded along in agreement anyway.

"Do you guys talk about that a lot?"

"Only whenever it comes up," Spina said, in a way that made Babe think that it probably came up a lot, and Spina was probably the one to bring it up.

It occurred to Babe then that Spina was Roe's closest friend on the team, meaning he was probably the best source of accurate information on him. As Roe's friend, though, it was entirely possible that Spina would report whatever Babe said back to Roe.

"So...how's Roe feeling about the game tonight?" That sounded like something ambiguous and safe.

"Doc?" Spina glanced across the ice to the other net, where Roe was in conversation with the goalie coach, Chuck Grant. "Oh, he's alright. Should be fine for the start."

He paused for a moment. " _Oh_ , you mean because of the other night! Nah, he's fine, he doesn't let one loss get to him, especially in the preseason."

"Really? Because with how upset he was, that looked _kind of_ like it got to him."

"Upset? When?"

Babe blinked slowly. "On the bus? And in the dressing room? And on the ice...?"

Spina made a face. "Well, maybe a little, but that's because he hates getting scored on. I mean, we all hate it, of course, but Doc takes it really hard. And then he stews about it for a bit, and then he lets it go. Well, mostly. I'm pretty sure he actually remembers every goal that's ever been scored on him, so I'm not sure if that counts as being 'over it,' but he's not still, like, mad, you know?"

"I guess," Babe hedged. He would have said more, but Webster and Liebgott had finally been corralled to opposite ends of the ice, though they were still glaring daggers at each other.

Well. It looked like that line combination wouldn't be working out.

Spina sighed loudly. "Those two, man, I swear. They actually _did_ used to get along. Well, no, they didn't, but they did, you know?"

"No."

"Yeah, you do."

"I really don't."

"You know, like-"

Lipton's whistle sounded again, and for once he actually looked a little pissed off. Babe had to imagine that spending any amount of time around Liebgott and Webster would do that to a person. That was why Skinny always looked like a harassed mother of three children under five.

"Get in your positions! Are we here to talk or are we here to play hockey?"

Wasn't that the question of the century.

~~~

Despite how their first game had gone, Babe felt more comfortable going into the second one. Maybe it was because he had one under his belt and was getting back into the swing of things.

Maybe it was because he'd already embarrassed himself horribly and couldn't make things much worse unless he'd spun around and scored the goal himself.

Regardless, he felt confident as he sat in the dressing room, waiting to go out onto the ice for warm-up. Lip had gone down the lineup, and he said he wanted to pair Babe up more with Harry this time, to see how things worked out. That was fine by him; it wasn't like lines or pairings didn't move regularly anyway, and it would be good to figure out where he fit best in the lineup.

"That doesn't mean you're getting away from me that easily," Bill said, smacking him on the back none too gently.

"I didn't go anywhere."

Bill pointed at him. " _Exactly_."

"Why does nobody here make any sense-"

"So are you going to talk to Doc?"

Babe groaned, letting his head think against the back of his stall.

"For Christ's sake, will you give it a rest already? Why the fuck do you care so much?"

Bill looked affronted.

"I don't," he sniffed.

"He does," Smokey interjected. Bill sent him a scathing look, but Smokey looked cheerfully unscathed.

"Look, just talk to him once, and I swear I'll shut up about it, okay?" He gave Babe his best puppy eyes, making him look something like a bulldog.

Luckily for him, Babe was a sucker for dogs.

"You know what? Fine. _One time_ , and then you all have to drop it and never bring it up to me again. Okay?"

He made sure to catch the eyes of both Bill and Smokey, as well as Harry, who was doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn't listening to their every word.

When they had all agreed sufficiently, Babe sighed loudly and stood up.

"Stay here, I'll be back in a sec."

He steeled himself, and walked across the room to the goaltenders' stalls.

Spina wasn't there, off in talks with one of the trainers, but Roe was taping up his stick. He glanced up at Babe, looking him directly in the eye, and Babe almost forgot the entire reason he had come over there because oh, _wow_.

"Uh..."

Roe raised an eyebrow, but the smile curling the edges of his mouth was kind.

"Heffron, right?"

Babe blinked, startling himself back into reality. "Yes! Babe, yes. I mean. That's what people call me, Babe. As in, they call _me_ Babe, not the other way around. Not to be weird – it's a family thing, and then the guys caught on, because, you know, hockey and nicknames – but like, if it's weird, you don't have to call me – I mean my name is Edward, but only the nuns call me that, so-"

"Heffron." Now the smile was in his voice, too. "It's fine. God knows I know from nicknames. I'm just glad the boys here settled on Doc."

Babe was mostly just amazed things were going so well so far. He had all of his body parts still intact!

"Did people call you something else?"

The look Roe sent him was painfully sardonic.

"Think boats."

"Oh – _oh_ , yeah, I could see it."

"Yeah." Roe settled back in his stall, shaking his head. "I've had just about every nautical nickname under the sun. This one is refreshing by comparison."

"Yeah..." Babe trailed off, chanced a look at Roe, and then quickly averted his eyes. Roe was looking directly at him, had his full attention on him, and Babe didn't really know what to do with that.

"So, uh, about the last game..."

Roe nodded for him to continue.

"I'm really sorry about, um, how I screwed things up, and I just wanted to tell you-"

"It's fine."

"-that I – what?"

Roe's smile had turned rueful.

"It's fine," he said. "And I guess I should apologize for – well. Sometimes I get caught up, in the heat of the moment. Nobody deserves being barked at like that, though, so I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for the next time I do it, too, because it's probably gonna happen again one day, and it's not gonna be your fault."

"But like...that _was_ my fault."

Roe shrugged. "Maybe, but how I react is my own fault. Just...don't take it personal?"

His smile reached his eyes, and Babe nearly forgot how to breathe.

"I wouldn't want you to think I was mad at you."

Was breathing a thing that existed?

Probably not.

"...Heffron? Are you okay?"

"Fine!" Babe swallowed nearly audibly, his eyes wide. "I mean, yes, I'm fine. Thank you. For, um, all of it. And, uh, I just wanted to say...good luck tonight?"

He held out his hand, because when Babe Heffron embarrassed himself, he pulled out all the stops.

To his surprise, Roe actually smiled and took it.

"Thanks Heffron, you too."

It may have just been Babe's imagination, but part of him felt that perhaps Roe had held onto his hand for slightly longer than was strictly necessary.

And he was probably lying to himself when he thought he felt Roe's gaze on him all the way back to his stall.

He absolutely refused to high-five Bill when he got back, though he did have to suffer through his gloating.

"But what did I tell you, huh? I _told_ you it would all work out! See, this is why you all need to listen to me more, I'm always right about shit."

"You're rarely right about anything," Smokey countered.

Bill shrugged, perfectly willing to accept that assessment for once because he was too busy basking in the glow of his "victory."

"So what did you guys talk about?" he continued to pester as they skated onto the ice. The stands were still filling, and given that it was a preseason ice hockey game in Georgia, Babe wasn't holding out hope for a sellout crowd, but he was surprised by the sizeable cheer that went up when they came out.

The Toccoa faithful, it seemed, were ready for some hockey.

"Nothing," Babe mumbled, grabbing one of the pucks that had been tossed onto the ice and stickhandling it idly. "I apologized, he apologized, everything's good now."

Bill snatched the puck away from him. "Really? _Nothing_ else?"

Babe shoved him hard in the side and made a grab for the puck, which skittered away from the both of them.

" _Yes_ , nothing. I said I was sorry for screwing up, and he said he was sorry for yelling at me, and that if he does it again, he's sorry for that, too."

Bill made a face like he was thinking hard about something, which Babe imagined was a struggle for him.

"Yeah, I could see that. He can be touchy sometimes, but he doesn't usually mean it."

He shook his head. "Goalies, man, goalies are weird. Write that down."

Babe elbowed him and skated over to get his puck back.

"Gene's not weird."

Bill raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

He pointed towards the net.

Roe was hunched over the net, one hand idly stroking the crossbar while he tapped one of the posts with his stick. He leaned in close to the crossbar and looked to be saying something to it with a look of supreme concentration.

"Is he-"

"Talking to the posts. In French. According to some of the other guys in the league, it's 'not even the right kind of French.' Even the other French speakers think he's weird. I mean-"

He gestured emphatically in the direction of the net, where Roe had just crossed himself, kissed two fingers and pressed them to the crossbar.

Babe stared.

"...At least he didn't kiss it directly?"

Bill snapped his fingers and pointed at him. "Exactly, positive thoughts, good work. That way, when you finally get to kiss him, it won't be like you made out with a dirty hunk of metal that I can one hundred and ten percent promise you has never been washed in all of our years here."

Babe found himself groaning again, and didn't bother trying not to roll his eyes.

"Why do you keep saying that?"

Bill's grin was insufferably smug.

"Because," he said, looking impossibly pleased with himself, "You called him Gene."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When writing Roe's on-ice persona, I like to use a combination of Roe in his "you are officers, you are grown-ups!" speech and Robin Lehner, who is a very passionate, very angry goaltender. (Just type in his name and see what the first photo is that pops up on Google...that's Roe, except he's not nearly as excited to physically punch out the opposing team.) But after Roe tucks himself up like an angry turtle with his headphones and his hood up (I swear to God this is like the uniform of the sulking goaltender), he gets over it and he moves on. He just Cares A Lot, you guys, okay?
> 
> The ECHL preseason is [very abbreviated](http://www.echl.com/echl-announces-preseason-schedule-7) compared to the NHL's, so it's not uncommon for a team to only play two preseason games, and to possibly play them two days in a row in a home-and-home against the same team. I don't think it's been explicitly said, but Babe played juniors in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and played for both the Saginaw Spirit and the Sudbury Wolves.
> 
> Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease; clematis is a climbing flowering plant. Please learn the difference between them before asking the associates at your local nursery if they have them.
> 
> An odd-man rush is when a team enters their offensive zone and has more players than the other team has in the zone; in most cases, the defending team will only have one or both of its defensemen there and no fowards. Odd-man rushes are also called 3-on-1s, 2-on-1s, however many people are attacking vs however many are defending.
> 
> Spina's nickname would 100% be Spinner and I could totally see it turning into spider comments. Roe would luck out with Doc because his name would most likely be Rower and would turn into as many boat-themed nicknames as possible. In my head, Spina is just the biggest most unrepentant fanboy (though not the worst on the team, we shall learn...). I also gave him a tick that hockey players have (usually with the media) where they tend to use the same phrase over and over and over again. He got "you know?" but I am just _dying_ to figure out who is going to have the classic "for sure."
> 
> Spina's mancrush is on Henrik Lundqvist, the starting goaltender of the New York Rangers, known for being an exceptionally handsome and exceptionally good goaltender, hence why he has been nicknamed King Henrik (i.e., the king of New York). Carey Price, the starting goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens, is considered to be one of the best in the NHL right now. Neither is a bad choice as your goalie idol, but objectively, right now, Price is better. Ron Hextall is a famous goalie who played for the Philadelphia Flyers who was a good goaltender, but is mostly remembered for his temper and the penalties he accrued (goaltenders do not usually get penalties). He was good, but he's not usually on a list of top ten all-time goaltenders...unless you're a diehard Flyers fan. Dominik Hasek, however, is often recognized as being one of the top three goalies of all time - depending on who wrote the list, it's typically either Hasek, Patrick Roy, or Martin Brodeur.
> 
> Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has [stated on more than one occasion](http://www.startribune.com/wild-goalie-devan-dubnyk-s-memory-banks-get-brief-reprieve/398803781/) that he can remember every goal ever scored on him, so it's plausible that Roe could too. And goalies have done many, many strange things with their goal posts and creases, up to and including stroking and patting the crossbar, talking to the posts, and I am sure kissing them too. Most goalies tap the posts as part of their rituals, but it's not too strange if they pat them in thanks after the puck bounces off of them. Roe speaks "the wrong kind" of French because he speaks Cajun French and the vast majority of French speakers in North American ice hockey are French Canadian and speak Quebecois French.
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com)


	5. Road Roommates Are Sacred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road roommates are sacred, even if they're dicks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing the second half of this chapter at two in the morning because I make poor life decisions, so, I'm sorry.

**5\. Road roommates are sacred.**

Toccoa's first game of the official season was on the road in Atlanta.

"It's a big one, boys," Lip had said, pacing up and down the length of the dressing room after the South Carolina game, avoiding stepping on the logo without a glance due to years of practice. "Atlanta's our biggest rival, and we're facing them on their home ice. I don't think I need to remind you all that Atlanta is _also_ where our NHL affiliate is located. If you want to impress the Thrashers' GM and make him keep your name in mind the next prospects camp or the next time he's looking for a call-up, this is a great time to do it. We beat South Carolina – now I want to take that winning spirit and keep it going into the real season. We're looking to create a culture of _winning_ here, boys, not complacency."

A chorus of cheers had gone up around the room, and Babe hadn't felt bad joining in. While he hadn't been the most effective player on the ice in their 2-1 win over South Carolina, he'd still ended the game as a plus one, which was much better than being the guy who was responsible for the other team's game-winning goal. When he'd gone over with the rest of the guys to give Gene his congratulatory head taps, the goalie had even smiled at him and said, "Great work, Heffron."

(In a sad way, this was the most meaningful experience for Babe of the entire night.)

Babe was all about riding on the high of that win and turning it into actual points, especially when they were doing so in Atlanta. The guys had said that the Thrashers' GM would often attend Toccoa away-games in Atlanta, when he was in town. While most of the team wasn't signed to an NHL or AHL contract and couldn't be easily called up to another league, it was well-known that guys who impressed him had better chances of being invited to prospect camp the next summer, and prospect camp was their best chance at getting a foot in the door to the actual NHL. Even if all camp yielded was some AHL interest, Babe would take it. He was entirely prepared to Alex Burrows his way to the NHL.

But to even get to that point, he had to be impressive in the ECHL. He had to show that he was not only a competent player, but good enough to be considered by an upper-tier league. And to do that, he had to-

"Keep your fucking head up, Heffron!"

Babe narrowly dodged being hit with the keycard that was whipped at his face with far too much speed for something so lightweight. It still flicked off his ear, causing him to wince as it went over his shoulder and clattered to the ground behind him.

Apparently, even when he wasn't on the ice, he had to keep his fucking head up.

"Good off-ice habits lead to good on-ice habits," Bill said with another of his disgustingly smug expressions. He was probably just proud of himself for still managing to hit Babe, even if he didn't succeed in nailing him in the face.

With a sigh, Babe turned and bent down to pick up the card.

The Airborne wouldn't usually stay overnight in Atlanta, but their game tonight was the start of a two-game road trip. They were checking into their hotel now and would spend the night there after the game, only to wake up bright and early tomorrow morning and catch a plane to Norfolk for another game that night.

Bill, Babe had learned, was to be his roommate. He wasn't sure if this had been decided for them or if Bill had just decided it would be so, but Bill had already informed him of one very important thing:

Road roommates were sacred.

"It's like being married, right?" Bill had said, throwing an arm around Babe's shoulders.

Babe had shared a hotel room with plenty of other hockey players in the past, and had never once considered it to be like marriage.

He nodded anyway.

"Exactly. We spend all our time together, we sleep in the same room, I throw shit at you if you start snoring, you leave me the fuck alone if you somehow get the idea that _I'm_ snoring, I get dibs on the bathroom in the morning-"

"I can see why you're not married," Babe muttered. He tried and failed to shrug his way out from under Bill's arm.

" _No_ ," Bill protested a bit too loudly, "I'm not married because nobody's been able to lock down _all this_."

He gestured a hand up and down his body, in case Babe was confused about just what "all this" encompassed.

Babe didn't have to express his disgust at that, because a chorus of overwrought retching noises sounded behind them, right before Malarkey's line came staggering past them, clutching to each other as they mock-gagged.

"I can't," Skip croaked, grabbing onto Penkala's arm and slumping towards the floor. "I can't handle _all that_."

"I don't want to." Malarkey threw one hand over his mouth as he fell against Penkala's other side.

Penk, for his part, barely faltered under their combined weight, leading Babe to suspect that he probably dealt with this on a regular basis.

"Nobody wants to," Penkala said with a snort, "That's why he doesn't even have a fucking girlfriend."

His linemates had to break from their matching slumps so that they could reach over and high-five each other.

It was then as he watched them that something new occurred to Babe.

"Hey," he said, drawing their attention, "So if there's only two guys to a room, who do you guys room with?"

In the time he had spent with the Airborne so far, Babe had never once seen the trio separated from one another. If one of them was spotted on their own, the other two would come trickling through the door within the minute. They were always hanging off of each other, finishing each other's sentences (and often, food, whether or not they were invited). From what he'd gleaned, the three of them all shared a house. They were never apart, not even on the ice – according to the guys, they were the only line that Lip never bothered to shuffle around. Their line had somehow acquired the name "the Mortar Squad," but nobody would quite explain why.

After what he'd seen of them so far, Babe couldn't imagine how they chose who ended up sharing a room with someone else.

The three grimaced and a look passed between them. Skip pulled a face.

"Well..."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Joe growled, pushing past them on his way towards his room. Babe had spent enough time around him by now after sharing a house that he could _hear_ him rolling his eyes. "They rotate who's sharing with someone else on paper, and then they go push their beds together and sleep in a pile like fucking puppies."

"Wha- we do _not_!" Malarkey yelped in a frequency that could probably only be heard by dogs. Very much like a fucking puppy.

"We're more like otters," Skip corrected, "We hold on to each other so that we don't float away."

His best friends turned wide, betrayed eyes on him. Very much like puppies.

"You're all fuckin' ten-ply, is what you are."

Roy Cobb, possibly the most ornery person on the team and someone who Babe had come to believe was Satan's response to the existence of Shifty Powers, elbowed his way through the trio as he went down the hall, looking like he was personally offended by their existence.

The Mortar Squad watched him go, and then looked back at Babe and Bill with exaggeratedly wide eyes.

"That's why we choose to bunk up and share a room," Penk said, "Because whoever's the odd one out usually gets stuck on Cobb duty. It's supposed to be Skip's turn tonight."

"No fucking thank you."

Penk nodded in commiseration. "It works out well for Cobb, though, he pretty much always gets his own room."

"Him and Brad," Skip muttered, and whatever that meant, it sent his friends into fresh peals of laughter. Babe looked to Bill for an explanation, but he only shook his head with a smirk and nudged Babe forward.

"Come on, kid. Let's go take a nap."

Babe held off his questions until they were in their room, the door closed firmly behind them.

"Okay, but like for real: what _is_ Cobb's deal?"

He wasn't expecting Bill to laugh.

"He's not so bad." At Babe's look, he amended, "Sometimes. He's sometimes not so bad. Look, I can sorta see why he's so pissed. We have a twenty-man roster, but only eighteen guys are allowed to play in a game, right? Two of them have to be goalies, so that's sixteen, and Lip's usually a really defense-minded guy so he likes to ice all six d-men, and that gets you down to ten slots left for forwards. Unless we have guys injured, at least two guys – two forwards – are getting scratched. That's usually the fourth liners, meaning you're generally looking at Perco, Luz, and Cobb. And if anyone's getting scratched, it's probably Cobb."

"So he's got a chip on his shoulder."

"He's got the whole damn bag and a bowl of fucking salsa, man. He's extra salty because he's the only Canadian on the team but he's always the guy getting scratched. It really fucks him up."

Babe sat on his bed and made a face.

"Yeah, but like, Spina barely gets to play and he's totally fine with it. Or at least he doesn't take it out on everyone else."

Bill rolled his eyes.

"Goalies are weird, have I taught you nothing? Spinner doesn't count. Besides, as soon as Roe gets called up, he'll get a chance to start, and Roe's good, so we all know it's just a matter of time. At the very least, someone up the goalie pipeline is going to get injured and then Doc's gonna get the call."

Babe wanted absolutely nothing to do with the odd swoop his stomach did at that thought.

"Okay, but Cobb's gotta know that Lip's gonna swap him in eventually, too, right? I mean, it's only the first game, he doesn't even know if he's being scratched tonight yet."

Bill shrugged and flopped back on his own bed, fully dressed. He squirmed a little, trying to kick his shoes off without bothering to untie them.

"Eh, it's happened enough the past few years, we all kinda expect it if nobody's injured. He's not all bad, though. Catch him in a rare good mood and sometimes he's accidentally friendly."

Babe leaned back against the pillows on his own bed, eyeing Bill carefully.

"I'm surprised that you of all people would be defending him for being a jackass."

Bill surprisingly didn't throw something at him, but barked a laugh.

"Yeah, I guess we jackasses gotta stick together. I figure, the guy just wants to play hockey. I can get that."

Though he knew Bill couldn't see him, Babe nodded all the same, settling back more fully against the headboard.

Yeah, he could get that.

~~~

To apparently everyone's surprise, including Cobb, Lipton decided to put him in the lineup for their first game of the season, scratching both Luz and Perconte. They looked disappointed, but were back to harping on each other within seconds. Babe figured that they were probably used to it; that, and it was easier to compartmentalize when you acknowledged that part of it was a space issue and not necessarily a judgment of your skills.

Still, he couldn't imagine how he would feel if he was scratched, and right now, as the new guy, he was the weakest link of the d-corps.

"You're fine," Bill said, rolling his eyes.

Babe could feel himself failing not to make a face.

"I didn't even say anything!"

"Yeah, but I know things, right?" Bill tapped the side of his temple. "I know you, kid. It's the road roommate bond, it teaches you stuff."

"It's taught me that you're full of shit."

"It took you this long to pick up on that?" Harry tapped Babe's shins with his stick. "He's like Tim Hortons, guaranteed to brew up a fresh pot of bullshit every twenty minutes."

Bill leaned in towards Babe and said, "Harry played in Canada once and won't let anyone forget it."

" _Twice_." Harry pointed two fingers at them. "A year in Ottawa and nineteen games in Calgary two years later after I got moved at the trade deadline. And I played two years in Buffalo, which is basically American Canada. I'm practically a native."

"You're not fucking Canadian."

Somehow, Babe had already guessed who that was before he looked. Cobb was hunched over in his stall, not even particularly near them and yet still visibly seething at some perceived slight.

Babe was kind of hard-pressed not to roll his eyes. It wasn't easy to like a guy like Cobb, not when he made it so damn difficult.

"It was a joke, Cobb," Harry droned, his own eye rolling audible.

"Yeah, well it's not funny. You're not Canadian."

Babe didn't see who hissed, _"Jesus Christ_ ," but that was because multiple people said it at once. (He was pretty sure one of them was Liebgott, which both surprised him and didn't at the same time.)

Cobb looked around the room with his offense visible on his face. "What? It's true."

There were some intakes of breath, as if people were considering whether they should respond or bite their tongues.

Lip, ever the saint, stepped in to defuse any potential situations.

"We know it's true, Roy," he said quietly, "Nobody meant anything by it."

Apparently the coach talking to him was enough to abash even Cobb, because he flushed and looked away, mumbling, "Yeah, whatever."

Babe turned to Bill with a raised eyebrow, but Bill shook his head.

"Don't worry about it, kid," he said quietly enough that only Babe could hear. "It is what it is."

"And you guys think that Dike was worse?"

Bill pulled back so that he could look him over like he'd grown an extra head in the last few seconds. "Doesn't even compare, man. Does not even compare."

"Well then I'd hate to see what Dike is like," Babe muttered.

"Lucky you, you'll get your chance. He signed with the Monarchs again." He glanced over at where Liebgott and Webster were being quiet for once, largely by both making a point to ignore the other while Skinny suffered in between them.

Bill shook his head. "Won't that be a fucking treat."

~~~

The game, too, was a fucking treat. At first that sentiment was genuine, and then it rapidly became painfully ironic.

The first period of the game was fantastic – at least, if you were Babe, that was. Lip chanced him on the penalty kill with Bill, and they were not only successful, but Babe personally blocked two shots in rapid succession. (The smattering of applause he received from the away fans wasn't as satisfying as the pat on the back and the "thanks, man" he got from Roe during the next break in play.)

Not even counting Babe learning how to put his best foot forward when it mattered the most, the Airborne scored three unanswered goals in the first period, one from Malarkey, one from Liebgott, and one from Babe him-fucking-self. It had been a one-timer from the blue line and he'd had absolutely zero expectation that it would actually go in, but Atlanta's goalie could barely see it through the traffic in front of the net, and the puck tipped off his glove and in.

With his teammates slamming into him, cheering and slapping him on the back, and Bill shouting, "That's my fucking boy, right there!" and Shifty ducking off to scoop up the puck – _that_ was the highlight of Babe's night.

And then everything went catastrophically downhill.

Atlanta apparently decided to wake up for the second period, because they came out of the gate ready to play, scoring within the first fifteen seconds of play. After that it was like the floodgates had been opened, with their second and third goals quick to follow.

The score was tied at three entering the third, and while they were equal, that was not a place where any team wanted to be. Being up three to nothing was an accomplishment; letting the other team come back to tie it up in one period was a disgrace.

"We have this," Lip said, pacing up and down the locker room. " _You_ have this, boys, this is your game!"

It was not, it turned out, their game. They learned that rather thoroughly.

Atlanta scored again, shorthanded, no less. Toye tied things up again with what was an absolute garbage goal if Babe had ever seen one, but it counted.

Tied 4-4 with ten minutes left in the third. At least the fans were entertained.

As if things couldn't get worse, less than a minute later, Cobb got a penalty for cross-checking. Babe was frankly surprised that it had taken him that long to get a penalty, seeing as he'd been needling the other team all night. He was apparently just as pleasant on the ice as he was off of it.

By the skin of their teeth and with way too many close calls, Toccoa managed to kill the penalty. Babe was on the bench when Cobb shot out of the box as soon as the gate was opened, just in time to snatch up the puck and begin skating it into the neutral zone. With too many players from the other team closing in on him, he passed it back to a defenseman...not realizing that both of his defensemen had gone in for a line change, and that the only person left in their defensive zone was an opposing player who was in the process of skating back to neutral ice – a plan that was quickly abandoned when Cobb passed the puck directly to him. Gene wasn't expecting the turnover, especially not so close to the net, and couldn't make the save.

Babe couldn't hear what was being said over the noise of the Atlanta goal horn and cheering fans, but he could see that Gene had skated out of his crease to rip Cobb a new one.

What was more surprising was the absolutely stunned way that Cobb stared at him, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. He didn't say a word.

He was quiet when he came back to the bench, too. He didn't leave it for the rest of the game.

Babe didn't have to be told to steer clear of Cobb after the final horn sounded on their 5-4 loss. That was one of those situations that he had absolutely no desire to be involved with, like whatever drama Liebgott and Webster felt like putting on that day. But that didn't mean that he didn't notice Cobb hunched over in his stall, staring resolutely at the floor even as everyone else undressed, or his white-knuckled grip on his skate laces when he finally started moving. Everyone carefully stayed away from him, waiting for him to explode at the slightest hint of provocation.

But to Babe's surprise, nothing happened. When it was Cobb's shit that hit the fan, apparently, he finally learned to internalize his feelings a bit. Just in what Babe was sure was not a healthy way.

At the same time, he couldn't quite blame the guy. He'd felt like just as much shit when a loss had been his fault, and that had been the preseason when the games didn't matter. Now they were playing for points, and Cobb was playing for a spot in every game. A penalty and a truly atrocious turnover – Babe could see why he was pissed at himself. He maybe even felt sympathetic.

But he had also heeded Bill's lessons about minding his own business and not getting involved in his teammate's problems, so he wasn't going to touch any of that with a ten foot pole.

Which was why he was shocked when the team boarded the bus back to the hotel and the Mortar Squad, looking somewhat akin to exasperated martyrs, filed to the back of the bus to sit surrounding Cobb, who had very obviously sequestered himself to be alone.

"What the fuck do you want?" he groused, loudly enough that anyone could hear him.

Skip, who had taken the seat next to him, said, "Well, Roy, we're on the bus back to the hotel, and part of those pesky safety rules means that we need to _sit_ on the bus, and these here are called _open seats_ , so-"

"What the _fuck_ do you want?"

Babe could hear Malarkey's exasperation. "We're just sitting here, man, that's all."

Maybe it was a sign of Cobb's mood, but he didn't push the matter. The part that surprised Babe the most, though, was when Skip pulled out his phone and started playing some sort of video.

After a few seconds, Cobb had perked up at the noise and looked over at his seatmate.

"What are you watching?" He failed miserably to pretend that he wasn't interested.

"Game highlights. The Bruins beat my Sabres," Skip said, shaking his head. "Fucking Marchand scored _twice_."

Cobb was quiet for a moment, looking at Skip and then back at the phone, before asking, "Can you rewind that?"

He couldn't see them in the seat in front of him, but Malarkey and Penkala exchanged smirks and bumped fists.

A hand clapped down on Babe's shoulder, making him jump.

Bill smiled cheekily.

"Remind me to buy you a pair of binoculars for your birthday, so you don't have to strain yourself when you stare at people."

"I wasn't staring! I was just...surprised. They don't even like him. Shit, Cobb doesn't even like _them_."

Bill shrugged again. "I wouldn't say that. They're...used to each other. Nobody takes it personal anymore."

"Yeah, but they all talk about how much they don't want to share a room with him."

"Shit, kid, _Cobb_ doesn't want to share a room with anyone, that's why Lip always makes one of them his roommate. Everyone knows the Mortar Squad is just going to end up sharing a room anyway, may as well make everyone happy while you're at it."

"But why would they want to _help_ him when he's been such a dick? Why would they care about making him feel better?"

Bill took a moment to answer, thinking it over as the bus pulled away from the curb with a lurch.

He finally shrugged again.

"Even if he's shitty to them sometimes, he's still their roommate, sorta. And road roommates are sacred. You gotta look out for each other. It doesn't do the team any good for everyone to get all wrapped up in their heads. I mean, is Cobb playing tomorrow, probably not, at least because Luz and Perco haven't had a chance yet, but he's totally the type to stew over shit for fucking _days_ if nobody does anything, and that's not good for anybody. Sometimes, killing him with kindness works."

Babe glanced back over his shoulder to where Cobb and Skip were hunched over the phone screen together.

"And you're saying that Norman Dike was _worse_ than that?"

Bill shook his head grimly.

"Oh, rookie, you have no fucking idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's common in hockey for players to have to share hotel rooms, and while this is no longer true for veteran NHL players under the new CBA, I am fairly sure it's still common for ECHL players. The "culture of complacency" comment is referencing [this](http://so-hockey-eh.tumblr.com/post/71653349175/hockey-pep-talk-fail) because I couldn't resist. Plus/minus is a metric measuring how many goals were scored while a player was on the ice. They get plus one when their team scores and minus one when the other team scores. So if they're on the ice for two goals for their team and one against, they're a +1.
> 
> It is customary to tap helmets with your goalie after a win, and it's adorable.
> 
> Players from a minor league can't be called up to a higher league unless they have a contract with that league. Roe is on an NHL contract, and can therefore be called up to the AHL or NHL as needed. If someone is on an ECHL contract, they could not be called up to the AHL without signing an AHL contract first. Prospect camp is when a team invites its prospective (typically drafted) players to a camp to see how they all play, and non-drafted players (like players for minor league affiliates) are sometimes invited to participate, so that's a way for them to get their foot in the door to an upper-level league. While it's not uncommon for goalies signed to NHL contracts to do some time in the ECHL before making it to the NHL, that path is much more difficult for other players. Alexandre Burrows is an example of an undrafted non-goalie player who successfully made it up through the ranks of the ECHL and AHL to the NHL level and he was, for a while, an elite goal scorer.
> 
> Lines of forwards who are particularly good or notable are sometimes given names, typically by the press. The Mortar Squad, however, was named by their teammates, and nobody will say why.
> 
> I made Cobb Canadian just to make him the odd one out. I honestly can't explain why I'm so amused by writing him, but he was one of the first people I chose for a hockey AU (all for a joke that I've only half explained in the fic so far). It's common for a good chunk of ECHL players to be Canadian, but as all these guys are American, I liked the idea of making Cobb Canadian so he'd have something else to have a chip on his shoulder about, seeing as he's often scratched and hockey is his national pastime. The ten-ply comment was shamelessly stolen from [Letterkenny](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDDYcyrCNE) because I couldn't resist (it refers to the concept of ten-ply toilet paper, meaning that you're ridiculously soft). Tim Hortons, for the uninitiated, is a predominantly Canadian coffee chain (though it's also found in the northeastern US) that has become synonymous with Canadian culture.
> 
> It's common to save the puck from milestone goals, including one's first goal. A garbage or greasy goal is a goal that was more by chance and/or hacking away at the puck than by actual skill; while it's associated with less-skilled players, anybody can score a garbage goal, and even if it looked like shit, it still counts.
> 
> Cobb's turnover was based partially on [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yAdPA-W03I) turnover by Max Pacioretty that led to a goal by Steven Stamkos.
> 
> Skip is from Tonawanda and is therefore definitely a Buffalo Sabres fan. Cobb is a Canadian who inexplicably likes the Bruins, a team that is hated by most Canadian markets, for reasons that will be gotten into later.
> 
> As always, if you have any questions/comments, you can reach me at [my tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com).


	6. We Chirp You Because We Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe learns about the art of chirping, and how it applies to friends and enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The semester is done and I plan to finish this fic post-haste, if work doesn't kill me first.

**6\. We chirp you because we love you.**

"You know, sometimes I think you've somehow accidentally learned to skate, and then I realize that you've actually tripped and you're just gliding with style."

"Yeah, yeah, Perco, that's right, I'm the fucking Buzz Lightyear of hockey."

"No, see, if you were Buzz Lightyear, people would actually think you were a good hockey player. You're on the fourth line, Lip knows what's up. You're more like the piggy bank. People forget you're there and you don't do well in skates."

"Well, Frank, following that wonderful analogy, I think that would make you Mr. Potato Head."

"Why, because I'm the only one of us who can get a girl?"

"No, because you run your mouth off and then you fall to pieces when it matters most."

Babe hadn't quite expected hockey to include so many extended Toy Story metaphors, but then again, nobody could predict the "friendship" between George Luz and Frank Perconte. The two would insist that they only hung around each other because they were forced together by circumstance (and Lipton's lineup choices), but anyone who spent more than a few seconds with them could piece together that chirping was their sole form of communication – and they relished in it.

"Oh yeah? I saw you last night, you looked like fucking garbage on that turnover."

" _I_ looked like garbage? Me? Because I seem to remember that it was you who-"

Lip's voice floated across the ice, "Both of you shut up or neither of you are playing in the next game."

Babe swore he could hear their jaws snap shut.

Honestly, at this point he didn't even really mind it. Luz and Perco bickered like a married couple who were so used to complaining about each other that they could never really admit that they actually liked one another, but after a while their insults turned into background noise.

But when the team had dropped their first two games of the season (Norfolk had been an even bigger mess than Atlanta, a 3-0 shutout for the Admirals) and none of the pieces were clicking together right, a coach probably didn't want to hear his players joking about how poorly they had played.

Especially when it was true.

It wasn't Luz's fault that the team had lost the game last night – his turnover had been pretty rough but at least nobody had scored from it – but hearing the two of them joke about playing terribly was probably less irritating when the team wasn't actually playing terribly.

Babe didn't want to point fingers, but there were a few pretty clear issues with the team as it stood after two games, and they all knew what those issues were.

For one, and Babe was mature enough to acknowledge it, the defense wasn't doing their part. They were trying, but trying wasn't enough when they kept leaving Gene out to dry. Lip had been cycling through pairings, even in the midst of last night's game. Babe _felt_ like he was clicking okay with the guys, he felt like they were communicating well and working together, but it obviously wasn't enough when they were only two games in and they had already let eight goals be scored (given the truly embarrassing number of shots that the opposing teams had on net, those goals were pretty clearly a defense issue and not a goalie problem).

Another issue was Toccoa's own goal scoring, or rather, the lack thereof. It was only the start of the season, true, and they'd scored four goals against Atlanta, but they hadn't exactly had an easy time of scoring during the preseason, and the team was starting to get a little antsy that they were going to be starting a trend. When a team let themselves get used to not scoring very much, it got so much harder to change their culture and turn themselves around.

And the third issue, the elephant that was threatening to break through the ice, was that-

"Can you stop being such a whiny goddamned bitch for just two seconds, Webster?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Joe, maybe I actually just give a damn about this team, is that okay?"

"You didn't give a damn about us last year, I don't see why you would now."

-the Webster and Liebgott Show needed to go on an unexpected hiatus pending a cancellation. No magical linemate connection was worth this much bullshit.

In the short time that Babe had been with the Airborne, he could more easily remember the practices that _hadn't_ been interrupted to split up Webster and Liebgott. In most cases their usual bitching devolved into full on in-each-other's-faces screaming matches, though on at least two memorable occasions they'd fallen to the ice trying to punch each other's faces in.

It had gotten old pretty damn fast, but Babe was honestly shocked that Lip had allowed it to go on as long as it had. Lipton came off as a little bit soft, someone calm and unassuming, and it was true that he could be all of those things, but it only took one practice with him to realize that underneath his half-smiles and humility was a thick-skinned and steel-spirited coach who didn't take anyone's shit. Babe finally figured out why the guys sometimes called him "Mom" – he was more of a mother bear than a June Cleaver.

Given that knowledge, Babe couldn't believe that it took Lip quite this long to break up the dream team.

"You know what, that's it," he said, skating right in between the pair and bodily shoving them apart. "I've had it. Toye, you're swapping with Webster. I want to see if we can make it through one practice without turning everything into a circus."

Liebgott was sputtering, something Babe hadn't realized was possible.

(Skinny, standing ten feet away and pretending he didn't know his linemates, looked like Jesus himself had just appeared to him to tell him that there was a Santa Claus.)

"What the fuck?" Liebgott shouted, "He won't stop whining and you're going to promote him a line?"

The long, hard stare that Lipton leveled him brooked no complaints.

"Right now, Joe, the only one I hear whining is you. I'd recommend the both of you shut your mouths before you learn what it's like to be promoted to the healthy scratch list."

That was enough to do the trick, if only because Liebgott was so stunned that he couldn't even think of how to reply.

Bill sucked in a loud breath next to Babe.

"Lip's never scratched Lieb," he whispered.

"First time for everything," Babe replied.

It seemed that the threat was enough to cow both Liebgott and Webster, because they both turned away from each other with a huff and skated off to their different linemates. The team was quiet as they moved through their next drill, a pall cast over the ice that everyone was nervous to break, lest they also gain Lipton's wrath.

Huh. Babe hadn't even known that Lipton _had_ a wrath.

And then, not even five minutes later:

"You know," Luz began slowly, "I kind of like the idea that the healthy scratch is a promotion. Makes me feel better about my place in the world."

Babe didn't have to be watching to know that Perconte was shaking his head derisively. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Oh, Frank, I promise you, I sleep like a baby at night."

"You skate like one too."

Babe shook his own head now. "Does anything ever get those two down?"

Bill made a face and shrugged. "Eh, not for long. They get a little too into it sometimes, but they've got pretty thick skins. Nothing really bugs 'em."

"Which is why they act like they're getting scouted for their chirping skills and not their hockey," Smokey interjected. "Which, I mean, if you can't get any ice time, you may as well be getting an award for something."

"I'm just surprised they can go at it for so long without actually getting mad at each other," Babe said.

Bill laughed and threw an arm over his shoulder. "Oh, rookie, don't you know? We chirp you because we love you."

He grunted as Babe's elbow made satisfyingly solid contact with his spleen.

Babe raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Is that what that is?"

He pointed across the ice.

Even though they were ostensibly practicing on different lines, it probably wasn't helping their productivity at all, because Webster and Liebgott were still sending each other the bitchiest of looks; every time their eyes met and they realized the other had saw them staring, they would make a show of scoffing and rolling their eyes before looking away. Liebgott spiced up the latest round by tastefully scratching at his nose with his middle finger. Webster reared back like he was about to shout something, thought better of it, and made a show of turning away to say something to Shifty.

Liebgott glared murder at his back.

Bill made an indecisive noise. "Ehhhh. Not sure what I'd call that one."

"Bitchy Pomeranians," Johnny said as he skated by, smacking none-too-gently at their shins to get them moving for the next drill.

Bill didn't even seem to notice.

"That's it exactly," he said, pointing at Johnny. "They're bitchy Pomeranians."

The assembled group all seemed to be pleased with this assessment, and everybody skated off easily to line up for the drill.

Babe decided not to mention that bitchy Pomeranians didn't actually make for good teammates.

The rest of practice went off fairly well. The defense all seemed to be playing well, but they had always come off that way in practice; Harry hoped that they just had to settle into more of a routine and get used to each other's playing styles to get things to mesh well during games as well.

(Babe refrained from mentioning that the only person who didn't know everyone's playing styles yet was him.)

Webster and Liebgott at least stayed out of each other's ways. They both made it very clear that they were ignoring each other in favor of their linemates, and most of the team it seemed was perfectly happy with this arrangement, as long as they kept their mouths shut for more than five minutes.

Gene, as per usual, was amazing. It may have been a practice, but opening the season with two losses had seemed to light a fire under his ass because he was playing like it was the postseason already.

Not that Babe was staring or anything. It was just hard not to notice, when he was playing so well.

He may have made a mention of it as he skated past the goalie.

"Are you always this easily impressed, Heffron?" Gene raised a skeptical eyebrow, but the corner of his mouth was curling upwards.

"Only when I'm faced with something that's very impressive."

Both of Gene's eyebrows shot up this time, and Babe mentally played back that last line before feeling his face flush with mortification.

"I need to, uh – is that Bill? Oh, look, he's calling for me, I have to go, see you!"

He sprinted across the ice towards Bill, who was once again pouring water over his head and very clearly not in search of Babe, unless he was under the impression that Babe was at the bottom of his water bottle. Maybe that was why he'd taken the cap off and doused himself with the whole thing.

"We have showers, you know," Smokey was saying as Babe nearly crashed into the benches next to them. He glanced over nonchalantly at Babe's arrival.

"And what in the world did you say to our fair Doc to make him look like that?"

Babe was resolutely _not_ going to glance back at Gene, lest his ruse be discovered (Bill currently shaking out his hair like a wet dog was already tearing his excuse to pieces), but he was also pretty pathetic, so he didn't feel much shame in leaning in and hissing, "Like what? What does he look like?"

"Like he's confused and a little concerned for your health. He's still staring at us, by the way."

Smokey punctuated his statement by sending Gene a little wave and his best smile; a moment later, he snorted loudly.

"He flipped me off!" he said with a laugh. He shook his head. "Crazy bastard."

"He's not crazy," Babe immediately replied, because he had no self-preservation instincts.

Babe was somewhat lucky in that Bill, who had somehow acquired a second water bottle and was actually drinking from this one, was too distracted to comment. Smokey, however, was not.

"He may not be, but I'm pretty sure that you are. What did you say?"

Babe was already shaking his head. "I'm trying to wipe that interaction from my brain, so I'm certainly not going to tell you about it."

"Come on, that means it was something good!"

"What was good?" Bill asked, finally coming up for air.

Babe continued shaking his head and skated off towards Harry. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

(It apparently mattered to someone, though, because at the end of practice, it was Gene who bumped into Babe as he was stepping off the ice and murmured, "You're pretty impressive yourself, Heffron."

(Babe was pretty sure that his blush was clashing horribly with his hair, but it didn't really matter, because his pleased smile would be more than enough to distract from it.)

~~~

It was Bill who suggested that the team all go out together that night.

"Come on!" he whined to the locker room at large. "We haven't done anything as a team since the preseason started! Maybe this is what we need, one night out to relax and stop worrying about shit. We've got tomorrow off, and then practice the next day to get ready for the game Thursday. What better time to go on a little team bonding exercise?"

Considering that team bonding in Bill's world probably considered copious amounts of alcohol and no less than two people having to be scraped off of a bar and carried home, Babe wasn't really a fan of this idea.

Mainly because he somehow got the feeling that as the rookie, he would be stuck with either paying an obscene tab at the bar or doing the aforementioned dragging home of teammates. Possibly both.

Bill had the worst ideas.

"That may not be such a bad idea," Gene mused out loud, sharing a considering look with Spina before glancing over at Babe, that same small smile curling the edge of his lips.

Bill had the best ideas.

Somehow, between Bill and an overly enthusiastic Buck, they managed to get everyone to a bar. (Babe had expected at least some token protests or ducking out, but not even Cobb seemed averse to going. Either everyone really needed a night out, or he was on a team of lushes.)

Babe found himself shoved into a booth between Harry and Joe Toye, both of whom took to shots like they were water. One of them was noticeably showing the effects more than the other.

"Aren't you supposed to be the responsible dad and all that?" he asked Harry, who had a huge grin on his face and was listing slightly towards Babe.

Joe snorted loudly. "I've never seen that fucking leprechaun meet a drink he didn't like."

"Hey!" Harry protested, pointing a wobbly finger at Joe and nearly hitting Babe in the face in the process. He then dissolved into a fit of giggles before he could say whatever he'd been planning to, falling heavily against Babe's shoulder.

Babe looked at Joe helplessly. "Is this some sort of like...crisis because he's a new dad or something?"

Joe rolled his eyes. "No, he's always been like this. Kitty knows what she married."

Babe glanced back at Harry, which wasn't hard, because his hair was nearly in Babe's mouth, and then gave Joe a skeptical look.

"Kitty must be some sort of saint."

"She _is_ ," Harry sighed, patting Babe's arm clumsily.

That was how Gene found Babe later, still pinned to the booth between Joe and Harry as the latter continued to loudly extol upon the many virtues of his wife. They had already covered how she was a great mom, and had now moved onto the beauty of her hair.

"It's just so _pretty_ , you know?"

"What is?" Gene asked as he approached the table, two bottles of beer in his hands.

"Kitty's hair, apparently." Babe had never actually had a chance to meet Mrs. Kitty Welsh, so he had no idea what she looked like, but he wasn't willing to bring that up to Harry, lest he be forced into staring at the endless photos of Kitty and their son that Harry undoubtedly had on his phone.

Joe stood up as if to let Gene take his seat next to Babe, but Gene shook his head and said, "I was actually wondering if Heffron could join me for a minute?"

Babe felt his heart freeze for a moment, though he wasn't sure if it was in pleasure or horror, before he scrambled to get out of the booth, uncaring as he let Harry topple sideways across the vinyl seat. He ignored Joe's amused look and the catcalls from whoever was on the other side of the table (it was sad that he could recognize his teammates from their catcalls, but he was pretty sure it was Malarkey) as he finally escaped the booth and stood in front of Gene, only slightly out of breath from the exertion and not at all because Gene's amused look made him feel a little breathless.

He didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't for Gene to press a cold, damp bottle of beer into his hands. And he was absolutely unprepared for Gene's now-free hand to glance lightly off the small of his back, urging him in a direction away from the table.

Honestly right now he was rather glad for the catcalls from their teammates (all of the Mortar Squad and an absolutely delighted Smokey), because they kickstarted his brain and reminded him that he actually had to move his legs if he didn't want to fall on his face.

Somehow, he and Gene managed to secure a two-person table that was far enough away from the team to avoid any more prying eyes, assuming that the pack of gossips didn't get a little adventurous in their spying (and to be honest, Babe put nothing past them at this point). Once seated, he glanced down at the beer in his hands and then back up at Gene, who was giving him a slightly expectant and yet still amused look.

"I'm, uh..." he trailed off awkwardly. "You know I'm actually not legal to drink, right?"

Babe himself hadn't remembered that until an employee at the bar had checked his driver's license and proceeded to stamp his hand. He was so used to being able to buy alcohol in Sudbury that it honestly hadn't even occurred to him that he wouldn't be 21 until the end of the season. His teammates had taken great joy from buying him a Coke and presenting it to him with a flourish, Bill remarking that now they had a built-in designated driver for the rest of the season.

Given Gene's chuckle, he was well aware of this and was going to put the kibosh on Bill's idea. Bless his soul. He must have been cut from the same saintly cloth as Kitty Welsh.

(Babe tried to ignore that he was thinking of Gene the same way that Harry thought of his wife.)

"You looked like you needed it," was all he said, and Babe wouldn't deny it.

"Well, thank you," he said, taking what he felt was a long-deserved drink.

Gene was still smiling at him, though, and it was distracting.

"So, uh, did you just bring me over here for the drink? Or..."

At this, Gene ducked his head, smile still in place but actually looking a little bashful.

Babe was fascinated.

"Well, yes, but also no."

He glanced up again, and Babe felt frozen as their eyes met.

"Heffron, I wanted to-"

"God, you're such a _dick_!" echoed across the bar, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

"I bet you know a lot about dicks, don't you, Web? Probably learned a lot about them in _Manchester_ , didn't you?"

"Shit," Gene hissed, ducking his head down and tapping it against the top of his beer bottle. "Shit."

He looked up at Babe and sighed. "Come on. The guys are probably going to need help."

Even from a distance they could hear the sound of a table crashing to the floor, followed by, "You motherfucker!"

"I don't think that it was mothers that you were fucking, Web!"

"Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!" Joe Toye's voice came over the din, followed by the sounds of people scrabbling.

Gene shot another glance at Babe. "Actually, we probably won't be allowed back at this bar."

Babe shook his head, trying to tell himself that what he was feeling was irritation and not disappointment at the turn of events.

"Those two need to cut it the fuck out or we're never going to win."

Gene huffed. "Oh, we'll win, Heffron. Even if I have to drag this team kicking and screaming to the postseason, we're going to win. Now come on, we should probably get the boys out of here before the cops get involved."

His hand pressed against the small of Babe's back, firm and confident, and Babe forgot all about being disappointed.

~~~

**6b. Unless we hate you.**

Webster and Liebgott weren't put on the same line for Toccoa's home opener against the Florida Everblades on Thursday night, which was somehow disappointing to the Toccoa fans, though for the life of him Babe couldn't understand why. They obviously had no idea how much the two loathed each other.

The changes in the lineup were actually working out alright. Babe was playing with Smokey, and they were having no problems reading each other's movements and playing as a pair. Liebgott managed to score early in the first period even with Toye as his center, so Babe couldn't see what all the hype about putting him in a line with Webster had been in the first place.

This new lineup not only got them goals, but it got them all some peace and quiet, too.

At least, from their own team.

There was a center on the Everblades who certainly enjoyed running his mouth. Babe knew that because at this point even he had been the subject of some of his remarks. Considering that he didn't even know Babe and didn't have any dirt on him, most of the comments were insults to his playing ability, wrapped up in a nice homophobic bow.

It was nice that the officials were so kindly willing to look the other way.

Babe had played in Canadian juniors, which he honestly considered to be possibly more intolerant than even the most conservative and religious parts of South Philly, so he didn't even bother to roll his eyes as he filtered it out of his mind.

Webster, currently pairing up for a faceoff against the man, rolled his eyes.

"Troglodyte," he muttered. Apparently, the pest had just been waiting for someone to engage with him, because his face all but lit up.

"Well hey, Webster, back from California, I see. What happened to Manchester? Did they finally get sick of you sucking their dicks?"

Given that this was said literally within one foot of the official and loud enough to be clearly heard across the ice, there wasn't any real way that the comment could be tactfully ignored. Babe felt flush with vindication as the official's arm went up and a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct was finally called. The other player attempted to protest the call, but a threat of changing the penalty to a misconduct was enough to send him grumbling to the penalty box.

Babe's sense of vindication only grew when Webster himself actually scored on the ensuing power play, putting the Airborne at 2-0 with five minutes left in the first.

When the opposing player skated out of the penalty box, he was still grumbling darkly, but seemed to have at least temporarily learned his lesson about what constituted as acceptable chirping.

The only one who disagreed that that sentiment was apparently Joe Liebgott, because the next time the pair found themselves on the ice together, Joe lasted all of fifteen seconds before picking a fight with the guy, first crosschecking him and then all-too-willingly dropping his gloves as soon as it looked like the guy was going to bite.

Babe was on the bench during that altercation and couldn't hear what the two were saying to each other, but he did get to learn that Lipton had a stunningly wide vocabulary of curse words, and decided to use them all when describing how he currently felt about Joe Liebgott.

At the end of the fight, Liebgott was assessed a minor penalty for cross-checking and both of the players got matching fighting majors. Liebgott was frankly lucky the officials didn't throw in an instigator penalty for good measure.

"What the fuck was the purpose of that?" Babe groaned, leaning towards Smokey.

It was Bill, on his other side, who answered him.

"Well," he said slowly, "Remember that thing I told you about chirping and how we do it because we love you? Well, sometimes we chirp you because we hate you, too. And then we punch you."

"But why the hell would Liebgott want to defend Webster? I heard what that guy said to him, it was the same gross shit Liebgott himself said the other night."

Bill stared at him for a long moment before he shook his head.

"What did I just tell you, rookie? Sometimes, we chirp you because we love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a sad day when it's Bill who's teaching you about the finer nuances of love, Babe. (Though Webster and Liebgott have been such jackasses that I'm not sure I'd recognize that as any sort of fuzzy feeling, either...)
> 
> Chirping is a term commonly used in hockey (and sometimes outside of it) and it basically means trash talk. Guys might chirp each other in a teasing way, and they also might chirp opponents in a not-so-nice way.
> 
> The Toy Story references are from the line about how it's not flying, it's falling with style.
> 
> I almost had Harry try to be the exasperated parent in the bar, and then I thought of his happy drunken smile in "Points" and did a complete 180. As for Babe, I had actually forgotten until today that considering that he just aged out of the OHL, he would actually still be 20! And therefore, Babe forgot as well, considering that the drinking age is lower in Canada.
> 
> Speaking of the OHL, Canadian junior hockey (and especially the leagues under the CHL) has a reputation for being the epitome of bro-culture, including lots of drinking, womanizing, and homophobia. That's not to say that every product of the system is like that, or that nobody is trying to change those behaviors, but that's the reputation. Hockey as a whole is ostensibly trying to do away with homophobic and sexist remarks, with varying levels of effort and success. I generally think that officials are trying their best, but it would not be surprising if they let some remarks go that they really shouldn't.
> 
> If you have any questions/comments, you can as always [contact me on tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com).


	7. Listen to the Training Staff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe is reminded that it's important to be respectful towards your support staff, and works on his communication skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing edited because of course I didn't.

**7\. Listen to the training staff.**

Babe liked to think that he did a pretty good job of following his nutrition plan. It was a fact universally acknowledged that hockey players had to eat _a lot_ to keep up with the calories they burned every day, and by the end of the season most guys would still have lost a notable amount of weight. This typically meant eating a lot of protein and carbs – well, certain kinds of carbs.

"You're enabling him again, aren't you."

A glance to the side, followed by a loud huff.

"It's not _enabling-_ "

"Did you bring ice cream into the house?"

" _Yes_ , but that's because sometimes _I_ like to have it, it doesn't mean I-"

A disappointed sigh.

"You knew this would happen."

"I mean, yeah, for sure, but...at least he's happy?"

Everyone's heads turned to stare at Shifty, who blinked back at them, owlish and unassuming, before offering up a shy smile and a wave.

"It's really not an issue, guys," he started to say, before being cut off by a wave of scoffs and negations.

Behind Shifty's amazing stick work and bashful humility apparently lay a nutritionist's nightmare. His penchant for breaking from his set nutrition plan – and in spectacular fashion, as he was evidently prone to something more like a cheat lifestyle instead of a cheat day – had become so well-known that other teams' training staff would often pull aside Christenson, Toccoa's head athletic trainer, just to ask him how he dealt with his "problem child."

How he did that was apparently by first dealing with Shifty's main accomplice and housemate, Skinny, who had been accused on more than one occasion of aiding and abetting the absolute shattering of a diet plan.

It wasn't that hockey players weren't allowed to have dessert, but more that Shifty seemed to view sugar as a food group and Skinny was more than willing to be his provider, arguing that the path of least resistance was much easier than trying to keep things hidden from him.

"Did you ever think that maybe you should just keep it out of the house?" Christenson asked with an exasperated look, crossing his arms and looking far older than his years.

Skinny scoffed.

"Shit no."

He didn't bother to elaborate, but at this point Babe knew him well enough to know that nobody expected him to. Skinny Sisk had spent a good chunk of his career playing foil to the Webster and Liebgott Show, most often in the form of an exasperated babysitter. After doing so for so long, he essentially had negative amounts of fucks left to give about most anything else, up to and including policing the dietary habits of his best friend, who really was pretty cute when something made him happy.

This generally meant that Skinny was at the very least utterly willing to allow Shifty to get away with murder, if he wasn't helping him from the start. And he had no qualms about supplying Shifty with ice cream, his drug of choice which had been forbidden to him ever since Christenson found out that Shifty's idea of stocking up on carbohydrates for a game consisted less of the traditional "chicken and pasta" and more of "ice cream with ice cream on top and a side of ice cream. With sprinkles."

Which was why Christenson had now moved on to scolding Shifty again, somehow impervious to his sad face as he apologized and insisted that he felt fine and had more than enough energy to play in a game.

"We've _talked_ about this before."

"I am so sorry about this, Pat, I didn't mean to create such a problem. Oh, geeze, I feel so bad..."

Johnny snorted a little too closely to Babe's ear for his comfort, drawing his attention.

"Worst part is that the kid means every word he says, none of it's acting. And yet, if you go by his place tonight you'll probably find him curled up on his kitchen floor clutching a tub of Ben & Jerry's like it's the One Ring."

"It's a problem," Bull agreed sagely.

Babe shrugged. "I mean, at least it seems to be working out for him?"

After Liebgott's pissing match in their home opener led to a power play goal for the Everblades, Florida had rallied in the second period to tie the game at two, and had then scored again early in the third. Shifty had been the one not only to score the tying goal in the waning moments of the third period, but also to score the game-winning overtime goal.

Shit, if it was ice cream that made him play like that, maybe Babe needed to gain a better appreciation for dairy.

A sharp smack was delivered to the back of Babe's head. He was only surprised that Johnny wasn't the culprit.

"Hey, you know the rules, rookie. Listen to the training staff, 'cause they're a hell of a lot smarter than the rest of us."

"And if you don't treat them right, they'll make your life hell," Johnny added. "It was somehow always Dike's jerseys that missed the wash."

"Now Johnny, why would I want to go and wash a jersey just to give it back to a puddle of pond scum pretending to be a hockey player?"

Popeye Wynn, the assistant equipment manager, shot them all a mischievous look as he walked by pushing a cart full of used practice jerseys from the morning skate.

Babe, despite never having crossed him, still felt the need to check that his own jersey had indeed made it into the cart.

"It's Hoobs that you have to watch out for," Popeye continued, referring to the head equipment manager. "When people talk down to him, he kinda forgets to sharpen their skates before the game."

"That...could actually be kind of dangerous."

Popeye raised his eyebrows.

"Then don't talk down to him."

Babe put his hands up in defeat, having no desire to come off as if he was defending the infamous Norman Dike, lest he also find himself on the receiving end of the equipment staff "forgetting" his stuff.

"But really," Babe said as Popeye walked away, "I know not to be a jackass to the staff, I'm not that much of a jerk. We had training and equipment staff in juniors, too."

Bill clapped a rough hand over his shoulder. "Never hurts to go over the fundamentals, rookie. You might learn something new."

"I just said I already knew that, though," Babe said, but Bill was already walking away. Which was pretty obviously just to make a point, because he and Babe were supposed to be driving home together.

"Hey, Heffron, can I talk to you for a minute?"

On second thought, screw Bill, Babe had plans.

"Hey Gene, what's up?"

The quicksilver smile that Gene aimed his way was enough to make Babe's thought processes short out for a moment, so he could only stare dumbly as Gene said, "First off, thank you for not saying, 'what's up, Doc?', because I think I'm going to nut-punch the next person who says that."

"Oh...that would be bad."

Babe knew he sounded like an idiot, but he was glad that he hadn't also aired his second thought, which had been something along the lines of how that wasn't how he would like Gene to first become acquainted with his privates.

(Babe increasingly found himself under the realization that he was maybe a terrible person, but with Gene looking at him like that, he didn't really mind it so much.)

"Second," Gene said, "I wanted to ask what your plans were for after the game tonight."

Babe _had_ planned to do his usual post-game routine, which, barring celebrations with the team, usually meant sitting at home watching HGTV in his pajamas with Bill and Joe. (For people who claimed to hate it, Bill and Joe had a lot of opinions about interior design and renovation.)

Now, Babe's plans consisted of whatever it was that Gene wanted to do.

"Oh, you know, nothing much. Why, did you want to do something?"

He congratulated himself on his extremely casual delivery.

Gene's eyes kind of scrunched up a bit, the way they did when he thought something was amusing but wasn't going to say it.

Babe was smitten.

"I was thinking we could continue our conversation from the bar the other night?"

"Oh! Hey, yeah, that's right, you never got to finish telling me what it was you wanted to talk about."

Gene looked a little chagrinned, but he smiled. "Exactly. So...see you tonight?"

"Well, yeah, because we have a game tonight, so of course we're going to see each other – oh, after! Yes, yeah, I will see you after the game."

He didn't mind being laughed at, if it was Gene doing the laughing.

Christ, but he was pathetic.

"Bye, Heffron," Gene said with smiling eyes. He clasped Babe's arm for a moment before turning to go.

Babe was never washing this shirt again. Nothing could ruin this moment.

"Jesus Christ, Babe, will you get your fucking ass in gear? I'd like to go home sometime before the game!"

Unluckily for Babe, Bill Guarnere had never met a moment that he couldn't ruin.

"I'm coming, hold your fucking horses!"

On his way out, Babe did however make a point of stopping by Hoobler as he was sharpening skates.

"Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for all that you do for us, you know?"

Hoobler gave him a bit of an odd look, but he nodded and smiled. "Not a problem, man. Just doing my job."

If Babe's skates moved up in the line for sharpening, neither of them commented on it.

~~~

If Shifty Powers was Christenson's problem child, then Buck Compton was his star pupil. It wasn't that everyone else _didn't_ follow instructions – it was just that nobody did it with as much enthusiasm as Buck.

For sure, nobody else was wandering around checking up on their teammates quite like Buck did.

"Great stretching, boys!" he said as he passed the goaltenders in the hallway prior to the game.

"Make sure we're all staying hydrated!" he called out during warm-up.

"Hey Malark, is your hand doing alright? Make sure you check in with Pat, just in case."

"Skinny, you're living up to your name too much, make sure you eat some real food before the game."

It was like having your overly paranoid grandmother on the ice with you, if your grandmother was also a six-foot tall NHL prospect who looked like she could bench press you with a smile.

Naturally, it would be Buck, the wannabe junior athletic trainer who spent so much time making sure everyone else was alright, who would need help himself.

It happened about midway through the second period of their second game against the Everblades. The game was still scoreless and had been fairly uneventful, particularly when compared to last night's festivities. Webster was still centering the top line to keep him separated from Liebgott, and he and Buck initiated an odd-man rush against the lone defenseman in Florida's defensive zone. Buck picked up the puck on a saucer pass from Webster and was skating in on net when he was hooked from behind, an opposing forward's stick tugging his ankle backwards and causing him to fall roughly to the ice, catching himself at the last moment on his right knee – the same knee which he was rehabbing after summer surgery by playing with Toccoa.

The whistle was already blowing as Buck cried out in pain, and Christenson didn't need any more notice to vault over the bench and start jogging across the ice, Smokey skating over to meet him half way and hopefully keep him from slipping.

Babe and the rest of the team craned their necks from where they stood at the bench, watching as Christenson ducked his head to listen to whatever Buck was saying. There was a pall over the building, an unusual hush accented by low murmurs from the crowds, but they still could not hear what was being said on the ice. After about a minute of their exchange, Buck nodded to something that the trainer said, and Christenson gestured for Smokey to help him haul Buck upright again. They propped him up as he gingerly skated back to the bench, keeping his right leg slightly raised as the crowd got to their feet, applauding and cheering their support. Both the Airborne and the Everblades players tapped their sticks against the boards and the ice in a show of support as Buck was hustled off the ice to the dressing room, where Christenson would assess the potential damage.

"Fucking sucks, man," Bill said, shaking his head. "This could set him way back."

Everyone around him nodded solemnly. They didn't capitalize on the ensuing power play, but at least it seemed to set a fire under everyone's asses, because they had more than double the shots of the other team by the end of the period.

Buck was holding court in the locker room during the second intermission. Christenson said he didn't think that Buck had re-injured himself, but he had aggravated the old injury, and for that Christenson insisted he take it easy and stay out the rest of the game. Buck, naturally, disliked this assessment, but he respected an athletic trainer's opinion far too much to argue, and instead fell back on his secondary career as assistant athletic trainer.

"Doc, do you have enough water? Skip, make sure Doc has water."

"I have water-"

"Yeah, but is it _enough_?"

Babe was perfectly happy to lay low and let everyone else take the brunt of the mother-henning, but he still couldn't help letting out a small chuckle at Gene's put-out expression as Skip, with supreme and florid condescension, presented him with a fresh water bottle.

He froze when Gene caught him laughing; he felt himself start to flush and was ready to go over and stutter out some embarrassed apologies when Gene made a show of pointing at his own eyes and then towards Babe with an overly stern expression.

 _I'm watching you, Heffron_.

Something that felt dangerously like hope was fluttering around in Babe's chest, and it made him feel bold enough to do stupid things like canting his head challengingly and raising his eyebrows.

 _Then I'll put on a show for you_.

~~~

Babe didn't exactly put on a defensive clinic in the third period, but he _did_ block more shots than he probably had throughout the entire preseason.

Nothing showed you cared like throwing yourself bodily in the way of ninety miles per hour vulcanized rubber to protect your man – the goalie. The goal. To protect the goal. And whoever happened to be in it. Not that he noticed who was in it. Except that he couldn't stop checking to see if said person was watching him, and it was all extremely pathetic and Bill made sure to tell him loudly and often.

Babe was kind of a mess, but his stats were great, so he figured it all evened out in the end.

Liebgott was the hero of the game, scoring the game-winning goal with ninety seconds left. Florida never equalized, and Toccoa took the 1-0 regulation victory.

When the team lined up to congratulate Gene on his shutout, Babe made a point of forcing himself to only pat Gene's shoulder in congratulations, lest he do something embarrassing like get caught up staring into Gene's eyes as they tapped helmets. But Gene was apparently not satisfied with just a pat on the shoulder, because as Babe went to pull away, he made a small noise of disgust and growled, "Heffron, get over here," moments before sliding a hand around the back of Babe's neck and using it to pull them together. Babe, as expected, got so caught up in Gene's eyes that the moment their helmets clacked together – the moment that he remembered that they were still in the middle of the ice, surrounded by their teammates and cheering fans – was jarring enough that he instinctively moved to pull away again.

But Gene held fast, pressing their helmets together firmly, and he wouldn't let Babe escape his gaze as he said, "We're still going out tonight, right?"

Babe licked his lips and tried to tell the mad fluttering in his chest that there were many different interpretations of the phrase "going out." He had never felt more aware of Gene's goalie mask before, but he was thankful for it, because it kept him from doing something criminally dumb.

"Yeah."

He could see Gene's smile through his mask as he slid his hand to tap the side of Babe's helmet. "Good."

Babe skated off the ice in a daze, so he didn't hear any of the ribbing from his teammates about just what he and Gene planned to get up to later.

In the dressing room, Liebgott took to some sort of loud, strange gloating in front of Webster, who made a show of ignoring him, which only made Liebgott get louder. They looked like they might be gearing up for another of their bitchfests, and the team, having been without one since Lipton split the pair up, was looking on with considerable interest, if only for the entertainment value.

Babe, however, had no time for such shenanigans, because he had a date with Gene, by which he meant that he and Gene had made an appointment to meet which just so happened to be on this date and was not, in actuality, a _date_ -date.

But God, did he want it to be.

"You look like a lovesick puppy," Johnny said, watching Babe fidget as he waited for Gene to finish getting ready. "It's disgusting."

"C'mon, now, it's cute in a sad way," Bull argued, elbowing Johnny lightly in the side.

Johnny nodded firmly. "'Sad' being the operating word here. One of you needs to speak up and use your big boy words tonight, Peanut, because I'm not sure how much more of your sexual tension the rest of us can take."

" _My what?_ "

"Christ, Babe, we aren't trying to whistle for fucking dogs here, keep it down."

"Gene and I do _not_ have – we are just – he's my friend!"

"That's how they all start," Bull said sagely, nodding knowingly.

Babe's eyes narrowed as he glanced between Bull and Johnny.

"Then what does that say about you two?"

Johnny's scandalized expression was made even better by Gene's approach, because it meant that he didn't get a chance to reply before Gene was saying, "Heffron, you ready to go?"

Babe firmly reminded himself that all of this was happening under the strictest of platonic circumstances before he turned around and smiled at Gene. "Yeah, let's go."

It wasn't until he was actually in Gene's car that it struck Babe to ask, "Uh...so where are we actually going?"

Gene laughed and gave him a sidelong glance as he reversed out of his parking space.

"I was thinking we might go for a walk," he said, "Because there is absolutely zero chance of running into one of our teammates enjoying the great outdoors at night, and we're significantly less likely to be interrupted by people throwing drinks."

"You see, you say that, but I've been to Phillies games before, and let me tell you, people don't need a roof over their heads to throw their drinks."

Between Gene's laughter and the blaring thought that they were about to go for a _moonlit stroll_ , Babe was having a very hard time convincing himself that this was not, in fact, a date.

It was even more difficult when Gene took them to a park, where the only other people walking together under the streetlamps were, well, couples.

Babe told himself that he had no way of knowing if they were platonic couples like he and Gene, where "couple" was only an indicator of there being two people involved, but, well, the amount of kissing and handholding going on made him think that there probably wasn't much that was platonic about them.

He was struck with the distant thought that Gene had brought him to some sort of romantic make-out spot, and was so distracted mulling this idea over in his head in consternation that he jumped when he felt Gene's hand brush against his lower back just as it had in the bar, nudging him forward down a path. When he risked a glance over, Gene was smiling at him, his eyes scrunched up in that happy way that showed that he meant it.

"What?" Babe felt like there had to be something on his face, or better, that there had been something in his water that Buck had kept insisting he drink, because this situation felt entirely too surreal for words.

"Nothing. Just...you."

"I am me," he agreed, telling himself that he sounded pithy and clever and hoping that Gene thought so too.

"That you are."

The hand that kept glancing off of Babe's lower back grew a little firmer, and Babe told himself that he wasn't yet used to warm Georgia autumns and that the heat was why he felt so delusional, because it felt like Gene's hand was edging around his waist as they walked together.

"So," he said, swallowing past the lump in his throat, "You wanted to talk?"

He could feel Gene's eyes on him again, but Babe couldn't bring himself to meet them, worried about what he might do if he did.

"I did," Gene began slowly. "I do. I just...can't seem to think of how to say it."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Babe said blithely, "You're a lot better at-"

His words and his thoughts were both cut off by a warm mouth pressing against his own, firm and chaste and only for a short, sweet moment before Gene was pulling back again, holding Babe in place and making sure that this time, he could see Babe's eyes.

"That's the best way I know how to say it," he murmured into the hushed space between them.

Babe knew his mouth was hanging open and that it was probably highly unattractive, but he couldn't bring himself to care, because he was pretty sure he was about to vomit happiness-butterflies anyway.

"That's a really good way to say it," he said, nodding fervently, "You should keep saying it."

At this point Babe had seen and catalogued just about every variation on Gene's smiles, grins, and smirks, but the full-blown look of beaming delight on his face now, including the scrunched eyes and a smile that actually showed his teeth, was absolutely dazzling.

And then Gene ducked his head and kept telling Babe what he felt the best way that he knew how, and Babe practiced the best, most receptive listening skills of his life.

A camera flash went off, sharp in the encroaching darkness, but wrapped up in their own private conversation as they were, neither of them could bring themselves to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite common misconceptions (especially in hockey fandom), eating healthy is not the same as eating a low calorie diet when it comes to sports nutrition. If everyone just ate salads all the time they wouldn't have the energy to compete. Hockey players eat _a lot_ of carbs, and the classic pre-game dinner appears to be "chicken and pasta" (and I will forever hear this as Steve Ott's dreadfully nasal _"pass-ta"_ because Canadian hockey players can't say pasta correctly). It's not that they can't eat sweets and unhealthy foods but they probably aren't recommended (though I know that when playoff games go to overtime, they often eat pizza during the intermissions). They need to eat a lot of calories but they have to be the right kinds of calories. Ice cream probably doesn't count. But despite all of that, players tend to lose a lot of weight as the season goes on and some guys struggle to keep their weight up and have to eat even more.
> 
> Skate sharpening is important to preserve the life of your skate blades, and it's usually pretty personalized. Some NHL players will have their skates sharpened before every game (some even during), and others will wait much, much longer. It's all down to preference. If your skates aren't sharpened often enough you'll find that you're falling down a lot more.
> 
> It's not uncommon in the ECHL to play the same team in the same arena two nights in a row to save on travel costs (and when the Alaska Aces were involved, three nights in a row). This is common in MLB but not in the NHL.
> 
> Athletic trainers and equipment managers are essential parts of any hockey team and do a lot of work behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly. (There is a LOT of laundry in professional hockey.) If a player is injured on the ice, an athletic trainer will usually come out to check on them and see if they need to leave the game. They're usually pretty good at running on ice in shoes, but typically a player or two will escort them across the ice to make sure they don't fall.
> 
> Stick taps are a sign of support. Players will often tap their sticks against the ice (if they're on the ice) or the boards (if they're on the bench) when a player is helped off the ice for medical purposes, or if they want to let their buddy know that the fight he was just in was sick.
> 
> Contact me on [tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com)


	8. Media Relations Are an Art Form

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe and Gene deal with the fallout, and learn some things about the value of being a team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~I make poor life decisions at night and wrote this all in five hours and have to be awake for work in fourrrr~

**8\. Media relations are an art form.**

Babe spent the next morning in a bit of a haze, which he was more than willing to blame on Gene, considering that his morning routines were occupied by thoughts of Gene, and thoughts of  _kissing_  Gene, and how  _handsome_  he was, and-

Well. It certainly wasn't Babe's fault if he wasn't totally on top of his game after the guy he'd been pining after for weeks took him for a romantic stroll in the park and  _kissed_  him. But he didn't want to blame Gene, either, because Gene was amazing and Babe would never want him to even consider breaking things off with Babe because Babe found him distracting.

No, Babe chose to blame everything solidly on Bill, because Bill's phone suddenly decided to up and die that morning before practice, and Joe had decided to head in early to talk with the trainers, and Bill had decided to turn off and confiscate Babe's phone until after practice, arguing that his happy faces were disgusting and that neither they nor Doc were ever going to make it to practice on time if they kept texting instead of putting their fucking clothes on and getting in the goddamn car.

Bill was the reason why neither of them had an operational phone, and so Babe would blame him for the complete and utter ambush that awaited them at the rink. He had to blame Bill, because otherwise it was his own fault, and Gene's, because they were what inadvertently  _produced_  the ambush, and he didn't want any reason for last night to become a regret.

So. It was obviously Bill's fault, and he should be very, very sorry for doing this to them.

It happened like this:

The rink, when they reached it, was actually swamped by news vans. There were real reporters, with cameras and microphones and recorders, waiting outside the doors of the main entrance. And those reporters and cameras all turned en masse when they saw Babe step out of the car.

He could feel his face twisting up in a confused frown as they started moving towards him. They were calling  _his_  name, and cameras were flashing, and something about Gene?

"What's going on?" he said, but he wasn't sure who he was trying to address.

"The fuck is this?" Bill mumbled under his breath. He, too, was standing there in the middle of the parking lot, frozen in his tracks by the veritable swarm of press, but his hand had crept up to grip onto Babe's forearm, a little tight, but ready to guide him firmly away from whatever the hell this was.

He started to do just that, hissing under his breath, "Keep your head down and don't say a fucking word until we figure out what's going on," and he was probably lucky that his less-than-politically-correct vocabulary miraculously didn't get picked up by one of the many recorders being shoved in their faces.

"Mr. Heffron!" someone called out, far too close to Babe's face for his liking. He reared back, eyes wide and blinking owlishly. What the fuck could they possibly want with  _him_? His block percentages last night had been impressive but shit, they could just talk to him in the normal media scrums if they wanted to learn more about that. Why the hell were they all camped outside the building anyway? And so many of them, too, more than he'd ever seen since joining the ECHL. And for all the local television stations and news affiliates to be here, too, when they barely reported on ice hockey in Georgia – what the fuck could they want?

"Mr. Heffron! What are your comments on the photo?"

He blinked again, stumbling as he turned to look at her while Bill kept soldiering on, having no qualms about elbowing people out of the way and dragging Babe with him.

"Photo?" he mumbled.

"Break it up!" a voice shouted over the din, and Babe was veritably stunned to recognize that it was Lipton, striding confidently through the masses and right up to Babe and Bill, putting a hand on either of their shoulders and steering them purposefully towards the doors. Over his shoulder, he barked (and to think,  _Carwood Lipton_ , barking at the press!), "If and when we have something to say to you, we'll let you know. Until then, respect the club's wishes and  _back the hell off!_ "

Babe wasn't alone in turning to stare, wide-eyed, at Lip. Bill looked absolutely dumbstruck, muttering in awe, " _Lip_  said  _hell_  to the  _press_."

Lip, for his part, ignored their mutual bewilderment and hustled them through the doors, which were being propped open by his assistant coach, Talbert. Lipton didn't break his stride or his grip on his two players as he said, "Lock the doors up, Tab. I don't want any of those vultures getting in here until I give them a formal written invitation."

Bill, never one to remain silent for long, broke first.

"The fuck is going on, Lip?"

Lipton's face was uncharacteristically grim when he stopped them in the hallway near the locker room and turned his gaze upon Babe instead of Bill. There was something so sad in his eyes, and Babe was suddenly sure that he didn't want to know the answer.

Looking almost unbearably sympathetic, Lipton laid a hand on Babe's arm and said in a low voice, "A photo came out on social media early this morning. Of you and Gene."

Babe had been right; he didn't want to know the answer. Because from the look on Lip's face and the pack of reporters lurking outside the building, Babe knew exactly what must have been happening in that photo.

His first kiss with Gene, probably one of the most thrilling moments of his young life, had shown up on social media. He was being outed, and so was Gene.

Fuck,  _Gene_.

"Where's Gene?" he asked, his voice sounding flat and detached even to his own ears.

"He's already here. We tried to get a hold of the both of you, but Joe told us about Bill's phone not working, and all of your calls were going straight to voicemail."

With a painfully chagrinned look, Bill handed Babe his phone back, the screen lighting as it started up. In a voice that was far too soft for a man the fans liked to call Wild Bill, he asked, "You and Gene finally got your shit together?"

Babe suddenly couldn't speak around the lump in his throat, could barely move with how his limbs suddenly felt pinned in place and yet so jittery that he could shake out of his skin, but he moved his head in a jerky nod.

"Yeah," he croaked, his mouth and throat suddenly completely dry, "For a moment."

Because God only knew, he had no clue what would happen now.

 _God_ , but what were they going to do? What would  _Gene_  want to do? Babe hadn't ever been in the closet, but he'd also never dated before. With all of his focus for so many years on balancing school and hockey, and then on trying to play well enough in the OHL to get the attention of a professional league – well, it had been easier to focus on hockey instead of worrying about how his teammates or the press might react to the fact that he'd prefer to date guys. His family had been accepting from the start, had even encouraged him to give dating a try, but he had always insisted that he was content with the way things were, and he  _had_  been. When he came to Toccoa, he'd been turning over so many new leaves, in his career, in his life, and when his teammates had seemed to just take one look at his pining and  _known_  and  _accepted_  him, it had seemed like everything could turn out okay. For a few weeks, it had been as if he could really have it all, the game and the guy, and everybody would be fine with it, and he could have a life just like everybody else.

And maybe he still could, because Babe was undrafted, Babe was a nobody even by the ECHL's standards, Babe was an unknown entity and even the press would get bored with him quickly because he was  _nothing_  in the scheme of national hockey interest.

But  _Gene_. Gene had been a third-round draft pick, Gene had an NHL contract, Gene had  _articles_  written about him and they all talked about his NHL career as if it was a matter of when, not if. The media might follow Babe around for a bit but there was only so much of a story that they could squeeze out of him because nobody knew nor cared who he was. But  _Gene_ , Gene had prospects, Gene was going places.

Gene had so much more to lose by the alleged scandal of being caught kissing another man in a sport so conservative that even former players refused to come out. No matter what any of the leagues said about inclusion or how many players claimed they were cool with it, there had to be a reason why there were no openly gay players in the NHL, and at the very least one had to assume that those players thought that they wouldn't actually be accepted, or that it would negatively impact their careers. Regardless, most could agree that the time to be an LGBT trailblazer in the sport was  _not_  when one was an ECHL goalie fighting for a spot in the show. NHL teams always had so many goalies in the development pipeline, and the last thing Gene needed would be something that they could use to discount him. It wouldn't be because he was gay, but when showing mild signs of actually having a personality could get you blacklisted in the NHL, drawing unwanted media attention would undoubtedly be even more reason for teams to avoid him.

And God, maybe Babe might never make it anywhere in his career, but Gene had a  _chance_ , a real chance, and now he had to deal with  _this_? All of this bullshit, and what were they going to say? What would Gene even  _want_  to say? Would he deny it? Maybe they could get away with arguing that it wasn't them. It would hurt to cover it up, sure, and it would be the end of whatever budding relationship they had and that made his chest feel so, so tight, but this was for Gene, for Gene's  _career_ , and-

"Breathe for me, Babe, come on. You're alright, take a deep breath, slowly now, slowly. There you go, you're alright."

When he came back to himself, blinking at the black dots skirting around the edge of his vision, he was propped against the wall, Lipton pinning him there with both hands on Babe's shoulders, his face pinched in concern. Bill was hovering just next to him, his hands held up in front of him as if he had been prepared to catch Babe if his knees buckled, and despite his near-anxiety attack, Babe was overcome by a rush of grateful affection for his friend, and for his coach as well, because  _somebody_  needed to be levelheaded and prepared and right about now it most certainly wasn't him.

"What are we going to do?" Babe croaked, somewhere in the vicinity of a miserable moan, and one of Lipton's hands came up to curl around the back of Babe's neck, pulling him closer and keeping him in place. He ducked his head, making sure to meet Babe's eyes even as Babe tried to glance away.

"We're going to get through this, okay? We'll work things out. Everything is going to be alright."

"But  _Gene-_ "

"Gene is fine. Actually, when he came in early and found out, the first thing he did was worry about you. You guys have a lot to talk about to decide what you want to do with this, but I want you to know that every single person in that locker room and in this organization supports you."

"And if they don't, I'm gonna fuck 'em up," Bill contributed, looming helpfully next to them.

When Lipton said, "Thank you, Bill," his voice and smile were utterly sincere, and the vice grip around Babe's heart finally began to unclench.

"Thank you. Both of you, for..." He trailed off and waved his hand uselessly in front of him. But Lipton still smiled at him and clapped him on the shoulder.

"There's no need to thank anyone for being a human being. We're going to get you through this. Practice has been cancelled, but the guys are still in the locker room and they'd like to see you, to show their support. Winters and Nix are in and they've been talking with me and Ron about our options, but the final say is going to be up to you and Gene. For now, how about you guys head in with the team and we'll come get you and Gene in a little bit."

It was more of a command than a suggestion, but Babe found himself nodding along blithely as Lip shuffled him over into Bill's care. It took him an embarrassingly long time to recognize that the "Ron" who Lipton referred to was actually Speirs, and he only figured it out when the man himself appeared in the hall just outside of Lipton's office. To Babe's never-ending surprise, he actually approached them instead of waiting for Lip to join him. He came right up to Babe, eyes tracking him like a predator, and said, in his omnipresent monotone, "No matter what happens, you both have a place on this team."

Babe could only stare, Speirs's eyes boring into him uncomfortably, and he continued to nod along just as he had for Lipton. He was taken aback by the conviction in Speirs's voice, by how sincerely he meant what he said. Babe hadn't feared for their places in Toccoa – he really doubted that a team whose majority owners were a married gay couple could have an issue with gay players, no matter how conservative their fans' demographics were. But the upper leagues, those were another story altogether.

But Speirs wanted them to know that they were accepted here, and that nothing would happen to them here as a result of who they were attracted to, and it would have almost been sweet, if it was said by anyone other than Ron "Career-Long Reputation for Getting Away with the Most Unpenalized Cross-Checks" Speirs.

But still. The sentiment was nice.

Babe hadn't been afraid of the team finding out anything, if only because the team's meddling and encouragement was half the reason that there was anything for the media  _to_  find out in the first place. So it wasn't a surprise to walk into the locker room and immediately be caught up in a sea of hugs and pats on the back and commiserating, "Those fucking  _fucks_!", but it was still welcomed all the same. And when Johnny ruffled his hair and said, "We're all behind you two losers, all the way," that just made everything feel a little bit better.

But none of that could prepare him for the one person whose reaction actually mattered: Gene. Babe's whole world had been turned upside down in the past half hour, but none of it would have much of an impact on his career. Gene, though, Gene's livelihood was on the line here, and Gene was the other half of this burgeoning scandal, and Gene was the one with the ability to make or break Babe's heart right now. Everyone else's affirmed support was nice, but Gene's was the only opinion that had Babe waiting on tenterhooks.

When everyone finally started backing off, they cleared away enough that Babe could meet Gene's gaze from across the room, and this really wasn't something that he wanted to do in front of the team (they were horrible gossips and would probably hear what happened anyway, but it was the principle of the thing), but he still found himself making his way slowly across the room until he came to stop in front of Gene.

"Gene," he said breathlessly, scrambling for words as all evaded him. But what  _could_  he say, to his not-quite-yet boyfriend after finding out that he may be the reason why his career was destroyed. "Can we...?"

"We should talk," Gene said in a quiet voice, and even though that's what Babe had been trying to say, he still felt those fated words like sharp needle points in his chest. Never did those words bode well for a relationship, yet alone one as new and tentative as theirs.

~~~

There was nothing that Babe could do but agree, though, so he nodded and let Gene gesture him out of the locker room and towards and empty trainer's room. He waited as Gene shut the door, listening to it click shut with an air of painful finality. He almost dreaded Gene turning around, dreaded the look that would be on his face, having to hear his words of rejection.

And so he was honestly stunned when Gene came towards him with an expression of open concern and grabbed him by the shoulders to pull him into a tight hug, his mouth pressed against Babe's ear as he murmured, "Are you okay?", one hand fisted in Babe's hair while the other stroked firmly up and down his back.

It was all Babe could do to fist his hands in the back of Gene's shirt and hold on for dear life.

"I'm fine," he said, even though he still felt as if his mind was in a fog.  _God_ , but what the fuck was  _happening_?

Gene pulled back, and Babe felt a sense of loss even though it was only so that Gene could look him in the eyes, his gaze roving over Babe's face as if searching for signs that he wasn't telling the truth.

"Are you sure? I couldn't get a hold of you, you weren't answering your phone, I wanted to warn you, maybe tell you not to come in. I didn't want you to have to fight through that scrum like I did; I'm so sorry, you must have been blindsided."

"I'm fine," Babe said again, making sure his tone was a little more convincing this time. "But what about  _you_? I mean, what about your career, what about the Thrashers?"

Gene's smile was a little self-deprecating, but he was still rubbing a slow hand between Babe's shoulders, so he was willing to forego remarking on it for the moment.

"If the Thrashers or anyone else have a problem with me, they have my fully endorsed permission to fuck directly off, because I could not give a rat's ass what they have to say about me."

Babe knew that he had probably spent more than his fair share of time staring in bewilderment already this morning, but given Gene's general tendency to stun and impress him, he felt that his continued gawking could be excused.

"You aren't even worried?" he resolutely did not yelp.

Gene shrugged. "No, I am. It's easy to be blasé, but there's still a real chance that this could seriously affect my career. But that doesn't change that I never gave anyone any reason to think that I was straight other than that I didn't openly date any men where the hockey media could find me. Could they decide not to call me up because of this and make out like it was for other reasons, sure, but that's a risk I planned to take."

And Babe was right back to staring, only this time his mouth actually hung open so that he looked like the idiot he was.

"What do you mean, planned?"

Now Gene's smile was unbearably fond, and his eyes were warm, and Babe really, really wanted to kiss him, and hated that this whole situation suddenly made him doubt his welcome when this morning this had been all he'd been looking forward to doing.

"If I was really afraid of people finding out that I was gay," Gene said slowly, "Do you think that I would have spent so much time shamelessly pursuing my cute new teammate?"

It was hard to argue with that logic, but it was harder for Babe to resist that smile, and so he finally gave into his desires and kissed Gene. It was more urgent than their slow, sweet kisses the night before. Babe couldn't help but pour in all of his desperation, his fears, his sharp longing for this to  _work_ , and he nearly protested when Gene put a hand on his face and forced him to stop, until Gene's hand slid behind his head to grip in his hair so that he could guide the kiss, forcing Babe to follow along with his slow, burning pace, and God, but this was good too, so good. One of Babe's hands fisted in the front of Gene's t-shirt while the other gripped his shoulder far too tightly, but he moved easily when Gene backed him up against the wall (and he was all too ready to embrace Gene's fondness for that).

He was in a daze once more when Gene finally broke the kiss to press their foreheads together, but one that was much more pleasant than anything else that had happened so far today.

"I want to be with you," Gene breathed into the warm space between them. Babe's heart leapt in his chest, reaching somewhere for the vicinity of his throat. "No matter what happens, I want to be with you and I want to see where this goes."

His words fleeing him, Babe couldn't do anything but agree. Gene's hand was stroking through his hair now and was making it rather hard to think.

There was a knock on the door, and it was with visible regret that Gene pulled away from Babe and straightened himself before moving to answer the door. Lipton was on the other side, wearing the same sympathetic expression that he'd worn earlier.

"If you boys will come with me, we want to discuss the options with you."

Like ducklings, they trailed after Lip towards his office, but not without some insane spike of courage leading Babe to reach out and grab Gene's hand; from the smile that Gene shot him, it was more than appreciated.

They entered the office like that, hand in hand, and there was no way for anyone to be unaware of what their decision would be.

"So you want to come out," Nixon said, leaning back in Lipton's desk chair far enough that he was likely in danger of falling over, had Winters not been standing behind him. "Mazel tov. It's going to be an absolute bloodbath because you'll be the first openly gay professional hockey players in North America, but, y'know, it's probably your best bet."

"Nix," Winters hissed, squeezing his shoulders warningly. When he looked up at Babe and Gene, he wore an expression similar to Lipton's. "You do have options. Just because you want to stay together doesn't mean that you have to come out if you don't want to."

Nixon scoffed. "Nah, those pictures are pretty incriminating, we're all going to sound like idiots if we try to argue that it's not them."

He gestured towards the desk, where for the first time Babe was able to see blown-up shots of what appeared to be a Twitter post. It was a photo of Babe and Gene kissing, as was expected, and based on the clear definition of their profiles and the caption of "OMG Doc and the new guy kissing! ToccoaAirborne #hockeypride," there wouldn't be any real way to refute exactly who was in the photo and what was going on.

"I know," Nixon said, as if responding to words they hadn't said, "She could have at least written a better caption. Something about the proper way to show your goalie some love would work, I think."

When Winters smacked Nixon on the back of the head without ever looking away from Babe and Gene, Babe's respect for the team's new President increased exponentially.

"The pictures make things difficult, but you  _do_  have options. Not saying anything at all and refusing to answer is one of them. You don't owe anyone your personal lives and we can try to wait them out, refuse to comment until they get bored."

"But," Nixon cut in, "You probably would have to keep things under wraps indefinitely if you don't want to fuel the fire. If you want to stay together and you don't want to sneak around, coming out is pretty much your only option. But it's also going to be a shitshow. Just saying."

"That isn't helpful, Nix."

Nixon finally sat up straight and took his legs off of Lipton's desk.

"What, telling them the truth? It's going to have an effect on their careers, they're going to be remembered as the first openly gay players, no matter what else they do. If the get called up, that's what people will talk about. Everyone's going to be overly interested in their relationship, and they'll always try to pin the team's failures and successes on it. If they come out, they're going to be in the limelight and have to deal with all of the bullshit that it entails. We aren't doing them any favors by trying to sugarcoat it."

Winters was scowling at Nixon and Lipton was grimacing, but it was Speirs who was instead watching Gene and Babe with a considering look. After a moment he tapped Lipton's arm and gestured towards the hallway, asking if they could be excused. Winters nodded, and the pair quietly left the room.

"We still want to come out," Gene said, squeezing Babe's hand tight in his own. "We talked about how it could affect our careers, but neither of us was ever trying to hide our sexualities in the first place." He paused and glanced over at Babe as if looking for confirmation, and Babe nodded.

"My family and friends back home already know, and I never told anyone that I  _wasn't_  gay. It's just that nobody ever bothered to ask."

"And the team figured it all out anyway," Gene added, "So it's not like they're surprised or unsupportive. This might be all of those hockey executive's chances to put their pride flags where their mouths are."

Nixon and Winters exchanged glances, but when they looked back, their smiles were approving.

"Alright then!" Nixon said, clapping his hands together. "Let's set ourselves up a press conference with the slavering horde."

There was nothing comfortable about waiting as they waited for the press conference to begin. Babe had never seen so many members of the media before, not even for their home opener. When Lipton spoke to the media, there were never this many reporters or cameras.

Apparently people only gave a shit about hockey when something salacious happened.

Typical.

The press conference was to begin with Lipton addressing the media and talking about what happened and giving the organization's stance on it. Then Babe and Gene were to come forward and give prepared statements about their relationship. They had agreed not to answer questions right now; with their relationship being so new and the day so stressful, the last thing they wanted was to have the media prying even more deeply into their lives.

Still, Babe found himself gripping Gene's hand tightly from where they were tucked just out of the reporters' views. Gene squeezed his hand back in reassurance, and they watched Lipton step forward to the podium.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I'm not going to beat around the bush with pleasantries. You're all here because last night a photo was released on social media that appeared to show two of our players, Eugene Roe and Edward Heffron, in a romantic relationship. We would like to confirm that the photo is real, and that Gene and Babe are currently in a romantic relationship together."

Murmurs went up in the crowd and the sound of cameras shuttering rapidly increased. Some reporters started shouting out questions, but Lipton ignored them.

"I know you all have questions. I'm probably not going to answer them, nor are my players, because this organization thinks it's ridiculous that our players should have their personal lives dissected just because they like men instead of women. You can't deny that the majority of the news outlets I see in front of me right now have never covered a damn thing to do with our team before."

"Oh shit," Babe muttered under his breath. "Is he gonna go nuclear or something?"

"And you know what?" Lipton continued. "I can understand the interest. Everyone's interested in a novelty, and when professional men's hockey in North America has never had an openly LGBT player before, past or present, it makes them a novelty. But they shouldn't have to be a novelty, because we all should have been braver a long time ago so that they don't have to go through this now."

" _We_?" Babe hissed. Gene looked just as dumbfounded.

"For those of you who  _have_  been following the Airborne for a while, you'll know that this summer's hottest story was about me being 'demoted' from being both head coach and general manager to only head coach, while the role of general manager has been filled by my colleague, Ronald Speirs."

As he spoke, Speirs came out to stand beside Lipton at the podium.

"The fuck," Gene was muttering, and Babe could only squeeze his hand and agree.

Lipton continued, "A lot of you think that there must have been some behind-the-scenes drama that led to this decision. You think that our owners and management may have lost faith in me, and that I must harbor resentment towards Ron for 'taking' my old job. If we had shared our story a long time ago, you probably wouldn't be thinking that."

He took a small breath, barely pausing in his speech, and said, "Ronald Speirs and I have been in a committed romantic relationship since we were eighteen years old."

Yep. Lip was going nuclear.

His voice rose over the gasps and shouts from the crowd, saying, "We met playing hockey in college, but like so many players still today, we were afraid to come out to those around us. We didn't want our teammates to know, let alone the public, because we thought – no, we  _knew_  that we would have no chance at professional careers if we did. Ron and I kept our relationship secret for years, but we stayed together, even as he went to play for the Wild and I went to play in Europe. When Ron was traded to the Nashville Predators, I signed with Toccoa so that we could be closer together. When I retired from playing, Ron was still in the NHL, and we  _still_  had to fear repercussions if we came out, and so I started coaching. It's only been in these last few years since Ron retired that we've even been able to  _think_  about being open in our relationship. We're lucky to have such good friends in Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon, who saw our dilemma and wanted to create a way for us to be together without public scrutiny.

"But looking at how you've all reacted today, we wish that we'd faced that scrutiny earlier, so that our players wouldn't have to deal with it today. The hockey community has been saying that they support change and that they support LGBT players...well, to borrow Lewis Nixon's new favorite quote, it's time for everyone to put their pride flags where their mouths are."

Babe couldn't help giggling and nudging Gene in the side; Gene, for his part, looked all too pleased with himself.

When Lipton and a still-silent Speirs made their way towards them, Lipton met their smiles with one of his own.

"Got them warmed up for you," he said, patting them each on the shoulder.

And really, after Lipton's speech and the bombshells he'd dropped, nobody at that press conference gave a flying fuck about what Babe and Gene had to say.

It was glorious.

~~~

When they came back into the locker room, they walked into something of an existential crisis.

"That was a rollercoaster of emotion," Johnny said, one of the few to notice that they'd returned.

"Ride's not over yet," Bull added, pointing at Smokey, who was pacing around the room.

"I've come to the  _conclusion_ , therefore," he was saying, "That probably every single miserable bastard in this organization is like, at least a little bit gay."

A few token cries of protest rose up, but Smokey spoke over them. "And some of us are  _a lot_  bit gay. Not even bit gay, just like, full gay. All of the gay."

"I have a wife," Harry interjected, face unimpressed.

"That doesn't mean you can't be a little gay," Smokey said, waving a finger at him. "Like think about it: Babe and Doc are gay, Lip and Speirs are gay, Winters and Nixon are so gay they got  _married_ , Webster and Liebgott  _wish_ they were more gay-"

" _The fuck?!"_

"-then there's whatever the fuck the Mortar Squad is doing-"

There was a notable lack of protest from that quarter.

"-Bull and Johnny-"

" _What_?" Johnny interjected, and Bull actually sat up in surprise. "Who the fuck says we're gay?"

"Maybe not  _yet_ , but give it a few weeks, you might change your minds. I'm starting to think that we'll all be at least a little gay, eventually. Like, shit, am I gay?"

"Uh..." Spina actually raised his hand as if to get permission to speak. "If you were gay, don't you think you'd know by now?"

"I don't know. Just because you guys are all ugly doesn't mean that there aren't guys out there that I might want to bang. Shit, I thought I was just a huge Shea Weber fan, but what if it turns out that I actually feel the same way about him that Cobb feels about-"

"I don't have any  _feelings_  about anybody, I just really admire him!"

Smokey leveled him a highly unimpressed stare.

"Roy, nobody shows that much  _admiration_  to a poster and thinks only heterosexual thoughts."

"I don't show it  _admiration_  and for the last time it is  _not_  above my bed!"

"...I didn't say it was, but thank you for confirming the rumors, I'm really starting to question that admiration now."

Babe didn't know anything about a poster or who was being admired, but at that point Smokey's big gay crisis was devolving into a team-wide argument over how much love you could have for another male without it being gay, and it was endlessly hilarious to be one of the few people paying enough attention to see Lipton walk into the room, hear the conversation, and just put his head in his hand and walk back out.

Bill followed his gaze and laughed.

"You owe him a fruit basket, rookie."

"I owe him my fucking life," Babe said, shaking his own head. "What he did...I don't know how he did it. That was amazing. I could barely stutter through what had already been typed up for me, and that was when nobody was paying us much attention anyway."

Bill smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Media relations are an art form. It takes a long time to get that good, but you stick around long enough, you can manipulate the press so that they'll only talk about what you want them to talk about."

"You say that like you're so good at it."

Bill scoffed. "Of course I am. How else would I have kept my torrid love affair with Smokey a secret?"

"I knew it! I  _am_  gay!" Smokey cried out.

Luz fell to his knees and reached towards him dramatically. "I thought what we had was special!"

The team's arguments then turned to loud declarations of love in all directions, followed by the dramatic revelation of more "relationships," and it shouldn't have been so funny, except it really, really was.

Gene came over and bumped up against his side.

"This is our fucking team, Heffron," he said, shaking his head.

Babe watched them and smiled.

"Yeah. Our fucking team."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really never planned to write a chapter like this, but it just _happened_ and I was on such a roll that I let it do what it wanted. So, no hockey in this one, but some bits about hockey culture that I can explain.
> 
> I always find [this](http://www.theonion.com/article/report-nhl-actually-has-had-hundreds-of-openly-gay-32639) Onion article to be particularly relevant when discussing LGBT hockey players. There has never been an openly LGBT professional men's hockey player in North America (women's hockey is a whole other (more open and accepting) ball game), current or former, unlike literally every other major professional North American sports league. The various hockey leagues have been working to increase their messages of acceptance, but it hasn't really been working (for sure much of the fanbase isn't so accepting (though that's true of most sports)), and their chirps still often contain slurs. I couldn't find for sure that there haven't been any LGBT players in the AHL or ECHL, but all of the ECHL stuff I found was about an openly gay ref, and I figured if the ref was impressive, they probably still haven't had a player yet. So yes, Gene and Babe being openly gay _would_ be a big deal for hockey as a whole, and so Lipton and Speirs taking that bullet for them would be even bigger, because Speirs was an actual well-known NHL player.
> 
> And speaking of hockey culture, if I haven't mentioned it before, hockey culture hates all expression of personality. They want nothing that sets you apart from every other hockey player and if you show that you do have a personality, you usually get marked as an upstart or an attention hog and "not a team player" and get the associated bad press, and teams Do Not like getting unwanted press, no matter what it's for. And if you want to learn more about hockey's hatred of personality, just google PK Subban, it's a Thing. (Also, PK is the greatest.)
> 
> Smokey grew up a Preds fan so he loves Shea Weber from those days. Still no word on who Cobb absolutely doesn't have on a poster above his bed.
> 
> I will leave you all with [this](http://www.floridaeverblades.com/2017/07/everblades-aim-keep-jaromir-jagr-south-florida/) story about our friends the Florida Everblades trying to sign legendary NHLer Jaromir Jagr. At this point, Jags might have to take the offer. (Really, that article is adorable, you should read it.)
> 
> Contact me on [tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com)


	9. Protect Your Teammates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more answers are revealed, and the team gets a little bit back to normal. Well, their normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought the last chapter was rough, hold onto your asses, kids, because we've got a lot of ground to cover here.

**9\. Protect your teammates.**

The rest of the day was a wash. There wasn't much that anyone could do to get their heads off of the current events and back into hockey, and so Lip (after arriving in the locker room to a thorough round of applause, cat calls, and shouts of, "Wait, does this make Speirs our dad?") gave them all permission to head home once the press had gone.

"I expect you all to be back here tomorrow ready for morning skate," he said. "We're going up against the Monarchs tomorrow night, and I don't think I need to remind you all that that's a game we'd like to win."

He certainly wasn't wrong, if the mixture of cheers and jeers that followed meant anything. Babe wasn't sure how much of it was part of some sort of rivalry with Manchester and how much was brought on by a general dislike for Norman Dike.

Because he couldn't seem to let a good moment last, Liebgott immediately turned towards Webster, his lips curled in a distinctly unfriendly smirk.

"Wow, do you hear that, Web? Your friends are coming to town!"

Webster, for his part, looked like he was almost considering not taking the bait (and wouldn't that be a damn miracle) until he gave in to his natural tendencies and rolled his eyes. "They aren't my friends."

"Oh, really? Because you signed there last year, which I'd say makes you pretty damn friendly, wouldn't you?"

The room had fallen silent now, following the show once again, but Lipton and Talbert were both lurking by the door with their arms crossed, probably considering if and when to intervene.

"Fuck you, Joe, I'm not doing this with you again."

Webster stood up and shouldered his bag as if to leave; Liebgott immediately shot to his feet and stalked over to him, grabbing onto his bag to hold him in place.

With a smile that was now obviously false, he said, "I don't know how we can do it again when we've never even done it once."

"You sure?" someone muttered, and Babe would bet a month's salary that it was Penkala.

"I'm pretty sure we have. This is where you say that I betrayed the team by daring to get traded, and I say that I didn't have a choice. Then you remind me that I  _chose_  to sign with Manchester last year, and I tell you that I did, but that you don't have a goddamn clue what you're talking about, and then you say that it looks pretty clear to you, and then it all devolves into a screaming match where you insinuate that I supposedly had sex with the entirety of the Monarchs and I call you deplorable, but with many more four-letter words. Did I miss anything?"

Liebgott didn't blink at that, but Babe sure did. Given how many times they'd all heard that exact argument before, he hadn't realized that Webster had actually grown to be self-aware.

"So is that you admitting that you were the team bicycle then, Web? Everybody got a ride?"

God-fucking-damn it.

"Joe," Lipton said warningly, finally starting towards the pair, but it was too late: now Liebgott had Webster going.

"You know what, fuck you, Joe!"

"You wish, princess. Is that why you didn't come back last year? Is it because I wouldn't fuck you?"

"That's enough!" Lipton barked roughly, getting into Liebgott's face as he forced his way between the two. Talbert was right there behind him, doing this same with Webster and saying lowly, "Come on, break it up, don't give him the satisfaction."

But as in all things, Webster and Liebgott only had eyes – and ears – for each other.

"You think I wanted to sleep with you?" Webster laughed, but there wasn't a single funny thing about it. Babe felt distinctly uncomfortable; this wasn't something that they were meant to see, but like all episodes of the Webster and Liebgott Show, it was painfully public. "God, you have to make absolutely everything about you, don't you?"

"It  _was_  about me, because you were too much of a coward to come back and face me after you left."

"I was traded! What the fuck about that can you not get through your abnormally thick skull?"

Joe struggled in Lipton's hold, his eyes bright.

"The part where you didn't come back!"

Webster threw up arms and pointedly rolled his eyes.

"I  _couldn't_  come back, Joe!"

"Yeah, because you were too much of a fucking  _coward-_ "

"You can't come back to a team that doesn't offer you a contract, you ignorant fuck!"

That one actually managed to shut Liebgott up for a few seconds. He stood there, no longer straining in Lipton's grip, and licked his lips, eyes darting between Webster and Lipton.

"That true?" he asked Lipton, voice abnormally subdued after all of his shouting. "You didn't offer him a contract?"

Lipton closed his eyes and sighed. He looked weary and exhausted, and Babe suddenly remembered that if it felt like it had already been a long day for him, it had been just as bad for Lipton – and it was only getting worse.

"You don't know the whole story, Joe," he said quietly.

"Then why don't you explain it to me?"

Liebgott started fidgeting again, this time to pull himself back out of Lipton's grip; Lipton let him go easily, his eyes so, so tired.

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you fucking can't?"

"Watch it!" Talbert barked, letting go of Webster to take a step towards them.

"No, Tab, no, I want him to answer the question. Did you or did you not offer Web a contract?"

Lipton sighed and shook his head. "No, Joe, I did not offer David a contract. And no, I cannot tell you why."

"Well why the fuck not?"

Joe was being obnoxious, but a look around the room showed that many members of the team felt the same. Bill cursed under his breath and more than a few people were grumbling to each other. Webster, for his part, actually looked very interested in hearing the answer.

But Lipton only shook his head again. "I'm not at liberty to say, and frankly, it's none of your business."

"Bull _shit_  it's not, you're the one who traded for Dike in the first place! You traded Web away, and then you didn't want him to come back-"

"And according to everything that you've been saying,  _loudly_ , since before the season even started,  _you_  supposedly don't care about anything to do with David, which I would take as a pretty clear indication that my reasons aren't any of your business."

He drew back and sent a look around the room.

"Or anyone else's business, for that matter. We are not having this conversation again. Now I'd like to suggest that everyone go home and sleep this off and be ready to actually play some hockey tomorrow."

He turned and walked towards the door.

Liebgott took a step after him. "You're just gonna fucking walk out of here?"

Talbert moved with him, getting in Liebgott's face as he said, "Yeah, he is, and you're going to learn to shut your damn mouth before you get yourself scratched for the next  _month_ , got it? That's your coach, show some fucking respect."

"Yeah, well maybe if he-"

Now Harry stepped forward, his face grim.

"Shut it, Lieb. Quit while you're ahead."

Liebgott spun on him, posture tight and his face red and twisted in rage. "You're taking his side in this?"

"I'm not taking  _sides_ , I'm trying to keep you from making things worse. I don't understand why Lip didn't keep Web and I don't agree with it, but what you're doing isn't helping anything, because Lip isn't going to explain it. So shut up and suck it up and sleep it off, and maybe you and Webster can stop bitching each other out now."

There was a vein visibly leaping in Liebgott's jaw, and he looked like he was visibly restraining himself from lashing out. Harry only watched him, utterly unimpressed, until he snorted in disgust, rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room.

Harry and Talbert exchanged a glance before Talbert said, "That goes for everyone, let's pack it up, people. Big game tomorrow."

The response was lackluster, but everyone slowly began to comply.

Not without commenting amongst themselves, of course.

"What did I say, man?" Johnny was grumbling. "Rollercoaster of fucking emotion."

"The plot thickens," Smokey agreed. "But you know, Welshie's right. Maybe now the soap opera will finally get taken off the air."

Bill scoffed. "Please, they were bad even when they weren't on shitty terms with each other. Just maybe now they can actually play like teammates again."

Babe nearly jumped when he felt someone brush against his side; Gene's arm was pressed against his own, and he smiled grimly when Babe met his eyes.

"You okay?" Gene asked.

"What, me? Yeah, why not?"

Gene shook his head; his arm brushed up against Babe's again, before his hand twisted until his palm met Babe's. He squeezed Babe's hand gently.

"Just think things might be getting worse for a while. Everything we're gonna have to deal with in the media, everything  _Lip's_  gonna have to deal with, and now the boys might have issues trusting him?" He shook his head. "It's the last thing any of us needs."

Babe looked back around the room. Everyone was hunched up in their own groups, quiet, but by no means breaking it up and going home like they had been asked. Harry and Talbert were speaking quietly with Webster; Babe couldn't hear what they were discussing, but Webster, who still looked a little shell-shocked, shrugged and nodded before turning for the door. Talbert clapped him on the shoulder and followed him.

Skinny watched them walk out, shook his head, and slumped back in his stall.

"My life either just got a whole lot better or a whole lot fucking worse."

Babe smirked and glanced sideways at Gene.

"That's probably true for all of us."

Gene squeezed his hand again.

"Yeah, probably."

But he was smiling too, and that made everything feel just a little bit better.

~~~

Even the magic of Gene's smile couldn't keep that much shit from hitting the fan, and it did so in spectacular fashion.

"That's not just shit hitting the fan," Bull tsked, shaking his head. "That's a truck of manure going through a jet engine."

"And it smells just as good," Luz agreed.

Morning skate had started off relatively tame, if only because everyone seemed hesitant to bring up the previous day's events. Lipton clearly wasn't going to address what had happened the day before, and Babe honestly didn't expect him to. While it was obvious that Lipton didn't like being on unsure terms with the team, whatever had happened, he obviously wasn't going to explain it. Babe didn't really have a horse in that race and had no issue with Lipton or anyone else, but all throughout the morning skate it became increasingly apparent that everyone's heads weren't focused on the game. Lipton's growing frustration was uncharacteristic and palpable, but he was keeping an admirable hold over himself as he put them through their paces.

Babe was ready to chalk the whole thing up as a success, given that by the end of skate nobody had broken out into screaming fits or tried to start a mutiny, and then came time for media availability. Meeting with the media in and of itself wasn't a problem – access had been restricted to the usual crews who regularly covered hockey, who had been asked to keep their questions solely focused on the team and the game and not on anybody's personal lives. Everyone was respectful of the request, with the exception of some guy named Jones who followed the Monarchs and kept trying to make comparisons between Gene's career path and that of Jonathan Quick, "but if Jonathan Quick had to struggle with the realities of being an LGBT professional athlete." It was entirely nonsensical and Gene seemed to take a particular satisfaction in turning down his questions.

Aside from yesterday's revelations, Babe had never been a source of real interest to the media before, and so he was quite enjoying his ability to sit back and wait for Bill to finish up so that they could head home when the soap opera that was their lives took another turn for the dramatic.

Shouting came from the hallway, and given that the media were just wrapping up their questions, very little stopped them (and everyone else) from taking a peek. A short, balding man with a thick grey mustache was stalking angrily down the hall, his face flushed and sweating, as he shouted, "Goddamn you, Nixon, where are you?"

There wasn't even a question of if the reporters would start recording, because while Babe had never met the man before, he had seen his photograph in the front entryway often enough to know that he was Bruce Tallmadge, the owner of one-third of the organization, and he was very, very angry. After yesterday's fiascos, Babe could only imagine that all of the upcoming articles would include some reference to how the Toccoa front office seemed to be imploding on itself.

Nixon stuck his head out of the open door of Winters's office and put on one of the fakest smiles that Babe had seen to date.

"Bruce! Wonderful to see you, how about you step into Dick's office here and we can chat?"

Given the veins visibly throbbing in his temples and the sweat dripping down the man's clenched jaw, Babe made the educated guess that Bruce Tallmadge was more likely to have a coronary episode than he was to willingly enter Winters's office.

"I have had  _enough_  of your antics!" he shouted, utterly ignoring Nixon's suggestion. "Your father would be absolutely appalled with what you've done to his team!"

Nixon raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe with a highly entertained expression. Winters, undoubtedly the only professional one in the pair, actually entered the hallway.

"Mr. Tallmadge," he said in that soft, calm voice of his, "This seems like a conversation we should have behind closed doors." He nodded meaningfully towards the members of the press, piled up like so many eavesdropping schoolchildren in the doorway to the locker room.

Tallmadge, for his part, either did not care about what the media saw or, perhaps worse, very much desired that they saw whatever was to transpire, because he didn't even bother to glance in their direction.

"He was horrified with your behavior, and your, your-" He sputtered uselessly, before quite literally spitting out the word, " _Marriage_ , and he would have been even more disgusted to know that you inherited his properties under false pretenses."

Winters's face was becoming steadily more foreboding, an expression Babe had never seen before on him, but Nixon only looked more entertained.

"It was written pretty clearly in his will, I don't think that counts as false pretenses."

" _It was a mistake!_  He never would have wanted you to inherit a penny after what you did, knowing what, what you  _are_!"

Nixon shrugged. "Well, tough shit, his fault for not bothering to get it changed. Considering that that's all old news, what brings you here today, Bruce?"

Bruce looked like he was ready to take that heart attack, now. Perhaps with a side of apoplexy. "This  _abomination_  of a team is what brings me here!"

He stabbed a finger in the direction of assembled players bunched up in the doorway with the press. Lipton was notably absent, and Babe felt almost relieved that he wasn't here to see this, because he could guess where this was going, and Lip most certainly didn't deserve it. Especially not after what he'd just done for Babe and Gene.

"Which abomination in particular were you referring to?" Nixon continued blithely. "We just have so many, you see."

"This, this convention of fucking  _faggots_  you have going on!"

Nobody gasped, but the clicking of camera shutters was only getting louder.

"You two were bad enough  _owning_  the team, but now you bring in more of you? Now the coach is married to the general manager-"

"They're not actually married," Nixon interjected.

"And the players are all fucking?!"

Members of the Airborne all looked at each other consideringly. While Babe and Gene were the only public relationship on the team, if they had to take bets, they probably wouldn't be at the top of the "who's currently having sex with each other" list. They probably weren't in the top two.

"Well, Bruce, given that they are all consenting adults, we don't think that it's our business to ask if our players are engaging in sexual intercourse. Sometimes they want to save themselves for marriage, you know, so we'd feel bad if we made the claim that they're  _all_  fucking-"

"Nix," Winters hissed, none too gently nudging him in the side. Babe would bet good money that he was more upset that Nixon had said the word "fucking" in front of the media than he was that they were having this argument loudly and publically in front of the media and their team.

Before Tallmadge could bellow out a response, Winters addressed him. "Mr. Tallmadge, we respect everybody's relationships equally here, so I'd like to ask you not to speak about anybody in this organization like that ever again."

From his tone of voice, it was clear that this was not a request, but a demand. One that Tallmadge would meet if he knew what was good for him.

" _You_ ," he spat, his face turning into something even uglier. "You just think you can come in here and take over things, just because you're sleeping with that one?" He pointed at Nixon.

"I  _created_  this team, and as long as I own it, I have a right to control what goes on in it, and I want that fucker Lipton fired!"

Even Winters had to blink in surprise at that one. " _Excuse me?_ "

"You heard me," Tallmadge scoffed. "I may not be able to get rid of you two, but his behavior has been absolutely abominable. First he refused to sign Leonard Dike's boy to a new contract, and now this, this whole  _circus act_  with Speirs – your general manager! When you wanted to bring him in, I thought, good, a real, tough hockey player to man this place up a bit and stop mollycoddling these boys, and what do I get? Another faggot who can't listen to orders!"

Babe could only stare. Next to him, Bill was muttering a steady stream of elongated " _what the fuck_ "s under his breath.

"Dike?" Babe murmured.

Bill waved a hand at him to be silent, not that it was necessary, because everyone could hear Tallmadge very well, seeing as he felt the need to shout everything.

"I tell that prick to sign Dike's boy, because he was happier here where he got to play on a top line, and he refuses! Poor Norman had to go back to his old team, and now he can't even enjoy the California weather because they've moved. And  _I_  had to apologize to Leonard for that! None of you would take responsibility and make  _your staff_  behave, and now you let them  _flaunt themselves_  in front of the media?"

"Mr. Tallmadge," Winters said in a dangerous voice. " _You_  are the one making a spectacle in front of the media, and we need to continue this conversation-"

"A spectacle? Good! I want to make a spectacle! I want everyone to know  _exactly_  how I feel-"

"Trust me, we know," Johnny muttered darkly.

"-And I want witnesses to see how weak you are as leaders. Because you won't fire them, will you? You wouldn't dare fire your precious  _friends_ , even though they were insubordinate, even though they made a mockery of this team and the entire organization and of  _me_. Terry was lucky that he got out when he did and I was a fool not to join him!"

"I think you just come by the fool thing naturally, actually," Nixon said glibly. Winters didn't even bother sparing him a look.

"Mr. Tallmadge, the only one making a mockery of this team right now is you, just as you and Mr. Carlson have  _been_  making one for the last few years in your attempts to control the team's roster just to make your friends happy. Norman Dike was  _not_  a good fit for this team and everybody could see it. Lipton and Speirs have only helped this team by refusing to keep him on. I'm sorry, but I care more about the success of this organization than making his father happy. As the majority owners, Lewis and I have the final say in all hirings and firings, and we are quite satisfied with our staff's decisions, both over the summer and in the last twenty-four hours."

Tallmadge looked like he actually might explode, his red face somehow darkening even further. "You  _would_ ," he hissed. "Having more of  _your kind_  here. Well, I've had it! I won't be a party to it any longer!"

Nixon was actually  _smiling_.

"Bruce," he said slowly, as if speaking to a small child, "Would you like us to buy you out of your share of the team?"

The sound that Tallmadge made was not a word, but seemed more as if he wished to say so many curses at the same time that they all came out garbled together in one noise of incandescent rage.

Nixon, for his part, was beatific.

"Excellent! If you'd like to have your lawyer contact ours, we already have the papers written up and ready to be signed."

Winters shot him an incredulous look.

"We do?"

Nixon patted his shoulder. "Of course we do, Dick. I was in intelligence, remember? You have to see all angles of the problem, predict the most probable outcomes. Use your skills of deduction. Also, this one has been a long time coming, especially with Carlson gone. It was only a matter of time."

Tallmadge made his noises of wordless rage again, but they seemed to lose their power in the face of Nixon's cheer and the ramifications of the situation.

Despite all of the bombshells that continued to drop, what it all boiled down to was that Winters and Nixon – the two owners who had been more than ready to accept and support Babe and Gene and who truly cared about Toccoa's success – were going to be the team's sole owners.

And what's more...

"Dude, that's why Lip traded Webster for Dike!" Bill hissed, elbowing Babe roughly in the gut.

Babe glanced over his shoulder at Webster. Just like yesterday, Webster appeared shocked. What was more interesting was Liebgott, who had been quiet all morning and was now staring at Webster as if seeing him in a new light. Scoffing to himself, Babe thought that it was probably the first time he had ever truly acknowledged that Webster  _wasn't_  responsible for his own trade, despite all evidence pointing in that direction from the beginning.

Finally having an explanation, maybe those two could finally get their shit together.

"Mr. Tallmadge! Mr. Tallmadge, can we have a moment?"

A jostling shove from a reporter, drew Babe's attention as the media began trailing down the hall after Tallmadge, who was apparently stomping off in a huff.

Babe would say he hoped the door didn't hit his ass on the way out, but he wasn't feeling that charitable.

There was a sudden loud groan from behind him. When he turned around, Skinny was staring at Webster and Liebgott with a miserable expression.

"Fuck, does this mean that we need to have another team meeting?"

~~~

They did need to have another team meeting, this time including Winters and Nixon and an unblinking shark-eyed Speirs in the corner. Lipton stood before them all, his hands folded behind his back and his smile a thin, grim line.

"I know you all probably have a lot of questions-"

"No I think we're good," Skinny interrupted. He wasn't even looking at Lipton; actually, other than staring forlornly at the ground, he hadn't stopped sending furtive looks towards Webster and Liebgott, who in turn would not stop sneaking glances at each other. But while they watched each other with interest, Skinny looked more like he was waiting for his own execution.

Lipton ignored him.

"I did not want to discuss this with you all because it would be highly unprofessional, but seeing as how certain... _others_  have decided to do so for me, it's only right that I tell you all the full story, so that you aren't caught up in media speculation. To give you the brief version: yes, I was ordered by the previous ownership, at the cost of my role here, to make a trade for Norman Dike, and Webster was the, ahem, least expensive trade they were willing to make. I'm sorry to say that I went through with it, even though I regretted it before it even happened. I couldn't even attempt to correct it, because I was forbidden from bringing Webster back, for fear that it might somehow look as if we were admitting that the trade hadn't been a good idea."

A series of snorts and snide comments followed that, as if Lip wasn't already just barely keeping his voice above sarcasm. Babe had still never met Dike, but if even Lipton felt that way about him, he had to be pretty awful. Needing your father's intervention to get a top line position – and in the ECHL of all leagues – that was enough to cement Babe's opinion of him too.

He didn't imagine that he would like Norman Dike very much.

"After Dike's contract was up," Lipton continued, "I didn't plan to sign him again. Then Ron joined the organization, and, knowing how I felt about everything, did what I'd wanted to do all along and brought Webster back. I guess it's better late than never, but I want to apologize for putting all of you through this, and through Mr. Tallmadge's...episode."

Lip looked like he had other words that he'd like to use to describe what had gone on, but over the last day or so he'd probably used up his cursing quota for the decade.

"It's fine, Lip," Malarkey said, "We don't blame you."

Skip nodded vigorously. "Besides, you're old news now after Tallmadge's breakdown. There hasn't been that much excitement in a hallway outside of a dressing room since Tortorella fought the Calgary Flames."

"And now that the mystery is solved, maybe we can all stop playing fucking detective and go back to worrying about  _hockey_ ," Cobb grumbled.

"...What?" he asked, when everyone turned to stare at him. "Everyone here gossips like a bunch of fucking grandmothers at a church bake sale. Can we start giving a shit about hockey again?"

Everyone was silent for a moment longer, before Luz stood up and walked over to him, ruffling his hair obnoxiously and slumping down to sling an arm over his shoulder. "Oh, Roy, never change."

Any tension left in the room as Cobb yelped, "What the fuck, man, fuck off!"

Babe shared a look with Bill. "Think things will finally be normal here now?"

Bill was looking at Skinny, who was still staring at his linemates with something bordering trepidation.

"Not just yet," he murmured.

~~~

It started just before the game, when Lipton announced the night's lineup.

"Given what's gone on the last few days," he said slowly, "I'm thinking maybe a return to old form might be just what this team needs. Lieb, Web, Skinny, you boys are our starting lineup for tonight." He went on to say that Harry and Smokey would be the top defensive pair, with Gene in net, but nobody could hear that over the sound of Skinny groaning loudly.

"Look at that, Skinny, you're on the top line again!" Skip cheered.

Skinny continued groaning, tapping his head slowly against his stall with his eyes closed as if in great pain.

"I'm going to fucking die," he moaned.

He didn't actually die, but Babe could see why he might think that, after seeing how the game transpired.

Everything was not magically fixed between Webster and Liebgott. Sure, they still played fantastically together – the team was 2-0 at the end of the first, after they both scored a goal apiece. But as always, playing great hockey together had never stopped them from bickering like children.

"What the fuck was that pass, Joe?"

"That was a perfect pass, if you were actually watching the puck and not checking out your little friends."

"For the last time, they aren't my friends! They don't even like me!"

"Oh, I have company, then."

"Fuck off!"

"Would if I could, sweetheart, would if I could."

Skinny let out a loud, inarticulate groan that somehow summed up the feeling of the entire bench.

"Somebody fucking kill me," he moaned.

Harry patted his head.

"Chin up, sunshine. It could be worse."

It did get worse, because Norman Dike was on the ice.

Babe could finally understand why everyone hated him. He was, at best, a mediocre player, and being mediocre in the ECHL was a sign that you were not long for a professional career, certainly not one in the top-tier leagues. But Dike certainly behaved like he thought he belonged in the NHL. He was very much a fan of trash talk, making loud, derisive comments on just about everything that the Airborne did, no matter how poorly he himself was playing. Babe blocked one of his shots, and he actually tried to chirp him for it. It was bizarre and surreal and Babe would have found it comical, if it wasn't so terribly obnoxious.

It was now obvious why Lipton hadn't been allowed to bring Webster back, because Dike had a very visible complex about the whole trade fiasco. He was so desperate to let everyone know that he was happy with the off-season's outcome and his return to the Monarchs franchise that he just couldn't stop himself from loudly expounding upon it, particularly when in the vicinity of his old linemates.

Skinny looked ready to ask somebody to run their skates over his throat, just to avoid listening to another remark about how Dike just fit in so much better in Manchester, with his superior linemates who actually knew how to score.

"You don't even contribute," he told Skinny, "You never score any goals."

"Oh my fucking  _God_ ," Skinny moaned, "I don't even fucking  _care_."

Dike was, of course, entirely incorrect, and even if Skinny didn't score as many goals as his linemates, he assisted them often enough that his points total was killer. But Babe did come to the realization that even if he wasn't a very good hockey player, Dike was, in fact, an extremely effective pest.

He just wasn't trying to be; he really, really wanted everyone to believe that he was delighted to be in Manchester.

Dike being obnoxious wouldn't be enough to throw the whole game off. That came in the third period, with Toccoa winning 2-1. Dike had at that point demonstrated that his grasp of hockey as a sport was rather stunningly tenuous, and Babe had begun to wonder just how much influence his father exactly had to ever get signed in the ECHL in the first place. He wasn't a very strong skater, and no matter what he said, he didn't connect well with his linemates.

He also didn't seem to understand how to make a clean check. He and Webster were behind Manchester's net chasing after the puck when Dike came up behind Webster and checked him, hitting him directly in the numbers and sending him crashing head-first into the boards.

Webster dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and then he didn't move.

The whistle blew.

One moment, two.

He still didn't move.

"Huh," Dike said, seeming almost surprised by the turn of events. "He can't even take a check."

And then Dike learned what it was like to take a check, because he got the entirety of a furious Joe Liebgott slamming him into the ice. Dike seemed honestly baffled by this reaction, even as Liebgott began absolutely  _whaling_  on him, spitting and cursing the entire time. The crowd was yelling their outrage and Christenson was already on the ice, kneeling down beside Webster with their faces nearly touching. He didn't even have to gesture for the paramedics to bring out a stretcher. Babe didn't want to crowd them as they worked, but he was close enough to see Webster's hands move, and breathed a sigh of relief that he had regained consciousness. The medical team began putting Webster in a neck brace, and Liebgott was  _still_  punching the daylights out of Dike.

...And none of the Manchester players were coming to his aid.

"Uh..." Babe looked between the spectacle in front of them and Bill. "Should we go, like...pull him off?"

"Nah. Dike should have known this would happen. You always protect your teammates, rookie."

"Yeah, but like...Manchester isn't doing that."

The Monarchs were notably staying out of the altercation. Some were watching the paramedics work, while others had gone back to their bench for a drink. The officials had finally stepped in (they really should have done so as soon as Liebgott shoved Dike to the ice, but Babe was beginning to suspect that nobody really liked Dike very much), but weren't having a very easy time trying to haul Liebgott off of Dike.

"Eh." Bill shrugged, obviously unconcerned. "I wouldn't blame 'em. I may have played with Dike, but I wouldn't have called him my teammate, either."

In its own twisted way, it kind of made sense.

The officials had finally separated Liebgott and Dike, but were still having trouble restraining Liebgott, whose eyes were bright and out for blood – well, more blood than was currently streaming down Dike's face.

"You!" one of the linesmen shouted, pointing at Skinny, "Get him out of here, he's got a match penalty and he'll be lucky if he doesn't get suspended for the rest of the month!"

Skinny probably only kept from groaning because at this point, the frustrated officials would likely have given him a penalty for disobeying. He skated over to Liebgott and manhandled him towards the bench, with moderate success.

"I hate you all," Skinny said very clearly as he dragged Liebgott past Babe and Bill.

"Looking good, Skinny!" Bill called out in reply, wearing his cheekiest grin.

Skinny likely would have flipped him off, if he didn't need both hands to shove Liebgott through the gate and off the ice.

In the end, both Dike and Liebgott were assessed automatic game misconducts, Dike for checking Webster from behind and Liebgott for not only instigating an altercation with Dike but for using excessive force with the intent (and outcome) of injuring him. Liebgott undoubtedly had a supplementary discipline hearing in his near future, but he didn't seem to really care, not only because Toccoa held onto their one-goal lead to win the game, but because Webster was able to give a thumbs-up to the crowd as he was stretchered off the ice.

"The doctors think he's going to be fine," Lipton told them later in the dressing room. "They're keeping him overnight at the hospital as a precaution, but they don't think there will be any lasting damage."

"Except for Dike's face," Perconte said, and that brought up a rather macabre amount of cheers and laughter.

"He could get in a shitload of trouble," Babe said quietly to Bill, his eyes on Liebgott, who was already showered and dressed after his early exit from the game.

"Yeah," Bill agreed gamely, nodding. "But he was protecting his teammate, so nobody's going to say anything about it."

"His teammate?" Babe raised an eyebrow.

Bill snorted. "For now. Until they get their heads out of their asses."

"I'm quitting hockey," Skinny announced loudly to the room at large, but everyone cheered, so it was pretty doubtful that they believed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm slowly but surely tying up all of the loose threads, so hopefully I'll have covered everything by the next chapter (eeeeeeee one more to go!).
> 
> I have no idea what type of media availability ECHL players have, but in the NHL players are often available for interviews after morning skate and practices, so that's what happens here. Jonathan Quick is the goaltender for the Los Angeles Kings and he did play part of a season in the ECHL before being promoted to the (old) Manchester Monarchs in the AHL.
> 
> John Tortorella is a famously volatile (and highly entertaining, if he's not with your team) NHL coach, who, as the coach of the Vancouver Canucks, once tried to [fight the entirety of the Calgary Flames](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjWuviST3c) during an intermission in the hallway outside their dressing room. As a fan of the Canucks, it was both hilarious and horrifying (and as a hockey fan it was just hilarious). (Also, check out my boy Tanev leading Burr away by his jersey like a misbehaving kid.) Torts, if you were wondering, was suspended without pay for 15 days by the league, and is now the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
> 
> When near the boards, it's considered extremely dangerous to check a player "in the numbers," i.e., directly to the back (where the numbers are on their jersey) because in all likelihood they may not know you were coming (their back was to you) and they will likely be shoved head-first into the boards, which can result in all manner of head and neck injuries. In these and any events where a neck injury seems likely/possible (and pretty much any time a player is knocked unconscious), they will be put in a neck brace before being stretchered off the ice (and if they are conscious, most players will give the crowd a thumbs-up to show that they're alright).
> 
> I am by no means an expert at assessing penalties so I did my best here. Dike would probably get a game misconduct because his hit was reckless, and I gave Lieb a match penalty because he definitely went above and beyond and showed clear intent to injure (he charged at Dike after the whistle, shoved him to the ice and kept hitting him when Dike would have been considered defenseless and after he'd already "won" the altercation - most fighting pairs are separated as soon as they hit the ice), meaning that he would receive some form of supplementary discipline from the league (either a fine, a suspension, or a combination thereof).
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com)


	10. A Defenseman Is a Goalie's Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill mentors the fuck out of Babe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to finish this yesterday in time to be my birthday gift to myself, but it didn't work out. Whatever, it's a day late but I'm extremely pleased with it, so happy (my) belated birthday to all of you, here's the final chapter!
> 
> Unedited, we die like men.

**10\. A defenseman is a goalie's best friend.**

To the shock of absolutely nobody but Liebgott himself, he received a fine and a three-game suspension for his attack on Dike.

"I was defending my fucking teammate!" he absolutely did not whine when the team met for practice on Tuesday.

Webster had blushed at that, and Babe realized with a slowly dawning horror that he absolutely did not want to know a single thing about Liebgott and "fucking teammates."

Due to his three-game suspension, Liebgott was going to miss all of Toccoa's northeastern road trip, which would begin with the Adirondack Thunder on Wednesday, followed by a Friday game against the Worcester Railers and concluding with a game against the Reading Royals on Saturday.

Liebgott had been vocally upset over this, but there wasn't anything he could do about it, seeing as some Manchester fans were trying to argue that his suspension was already too lenient. Webster, despite some initial wooziness, had been kept overnight in the hospital and cleared of any signs of injury or concussion, and would therefore be joining the team on their road trip, though Lip planned to keep his ice time light. This meant, of course, that Webster and his knight in an army green jersey would be spending a bit of time apart from each other.

Babe, for one, was a little relieved by the separation, because the way that Liebgott and Webster kept making eyes at each other amidst their usual bickering was far too disturbing.

"Is that what we're like?" he'd hissed at Gene.

Gene had smirked and rolled his eyes.

"Please," he'd said, squeezing Babe's hand, "We aren't nearly so old and bitter."

Both Webster and Liebgott took offense to that comment, but only in regards to themselves, both thinking that it was a pretty appropriate description of the other. Settling exactly which of them was the most old and bitter turned into another of their typical arguments, except now when they got in each other's faces, there was a lot more licking of lips and staring heatedly into each other's eyes followed by slow, meaningful once-overs and Babe had to look away at that point because they were revolting.

"I never want to be so gross," he'd declared.

"Nobody show him a mirror," Bill had said, and then Gene had swooped in to try to defend Babe's honor and the whole thing was just extremely flattering.

This whole thing with Gene seemed like it came directly from the fantasies of one tiny gay preteen Babe Heffron, the ones where he grew up and played real hockey and he could still get the hot, smart, funny,  _amazing_  guy who also loved hockey, but loved Babe more.

They were way too early in their relationship to be talking about love, but the fuzzy feeling in Babe's chest and the way that Gene smiled at him, so fond and tender and just for him, made him feel like he was well on his way already.

The one sticking point was that Gene seemed to struggle immensely in learning to call him "Babe."

In front of the team he pretty uniformly referred to Babe as "Heffron," which wasn't the most romantic but got the job done and left few illusions about a lack of professionalism (even if pretty much the whole team had graduated to using his nickname unless they were Johnny Martin and invented new nicknames of their own for him; "Peanut" didn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon). With that many guys calling him by his lifelong nickname, it became increasingly noticeable that Gene, who was delighted to publically declare that Babe was his boyfriend, never called him by anything other than his last name. Which, you know, whatever, Babe didn't need a lot of coddling or pet names, but after this many requests to "please, just call me Babe already, you're killing me with all this Heffron crap," he would have hoped that Gene may have cottoned on and learned to call him by his name.

Well, his preferred name, because he'd only put up with one hesitant "Edward?" before deciding he'd already had too much.

"Jesus Christ, Gene, only the goddamn nuns call me Edward! Call me Babe, or if that's really so impossible for you, call me Heffron, what-the-fuck-ever. ' _Edward_ ,' fuck."

He'd shook his head in disgust, and almost missed the taken aback expression on Gene's face, his mouth hanging open in surprised dismay.

Babe grimaced and reached out to grab his hand.

"Shit, Gene, I'm sorry. It's really not that big of a deal. Look, call me whatever you'd like, it really doesn't matter."

Gene had brushed off his concern and insisted that he wasn't upset, and Babe had almost believed him, until Bill swooped in right as Gene left and helpfully asked, "So, does that count as your first fight?"

Babe tried not to push the matter after that, but it was still weird to have his boyfriend (and wasn't that an amazing thing that he actually got to say out loud) refer to him with all of the tender closeness of a DMV employee.

Even if Gene couldn't get on board with calling Babe anything other than his last name, at least he made up for it by being just about the most amazing boyfriend ever.

Well. Not that Babe had a lot of experience with dating. Or any experience at all. And they'd only even admitted that they liked each other like...three days ago, so they hadn't had many opportunities to be an amazing kickass hockey power couple yet. But Babe was pretty sure that they would get there, because Gene was so smart and kind and he cared so much about everyone and his smile made Babe's heart stop for a moment and when he was holding Babe's hand he knew that everything would be okay-

"Jesus Christ, he's not even here and I feel like telling you to get a room," Bill groused on their way to the rink early on Tuesday morning to meet the team bus. It was a full day's drive to get to Glen Falls, but after years in the OHL, Babe was used to grueling bus rides.

And with Gene there, spending all day in close quarters wouldn't be so bad-

"Oh my God you're doing it again. That's it, you two need to break up, I can't have my rookie being distracted by this, this...smut!"

Joe, who had up to that point been silent, turned to stare at Bill.

"Smut?"

Bill waved a hand around as if to sum up all of the words he was failing to say. "They're too fucking, like, I don't know, man,  _couple-y_ , and it's only been like what, two days so far?"

"Well, it's technically been two full calendar days, but we got together on Saturday night and now it's Tuesday morning so if you add all of that up-"

"Okay, Babe, you know what, no, shut the fuck up, I'm talking now."

Bill pulled over to the side of the road, and Babe actually felt a moment of trepidation. Joe obviously had no clue what was going on either, given his muttered, "The fuck, man?"

"Babe," Bill said, "I'm happy for you and shit, because you and Doc are like, nauseatingly cute together and I'm happy you're happy, but this like..." He waved his hands around again, uselessly wringing the air.

"Nauseating?" Joe supplied.

" _Yes_ ," Bill agreed, happy to have his own words fed back to him. "It's gross, and you need to keep your head focused on the game, because if you haven't noticed, shit's been getting real and we've got to get a handle on it."

"Are you saying you think I'm not  _trying_  hard enough?" Babe asked testily.

Bill heaved an exaggerated sigh and slapped his hands down on the steering wheel, turning in his seat to face Babe in the back (he was still not allowed to sit in the front unless Joe wasn't there, and even then he felt a little uneasy about it).

" _No_ , everyone knows you're trying, but I don't want you to get all distracted with Gene, either. Look, you're my rookie and that means I need to look out for you. I just wanna make sure that you're not, like, focusing so much on one thing that you forget about the other."

"Work-life balance," Joe interjected.

Bill snapped his fingers and nodded.

"Fuckin' work-life balance, exactly. Like, I'm gonna support you no matter what, because I'm a fucking kickass mentor and shit, but I don't want you to get so caught up with relationship shit that you forget about your career. You got a real chance to go places, but you gotta stay focused. Gene too, he's closer to a call-up than any of us."

He sighed again, much less dramatic this time.

"I'm not like, fucking eloquent or nothing, I'm not saying this right. Look. Just, like...keep your head up with the puck, right? Don't get so focused on your stick-handling that you forget to look around you or life's gonna hip-check you like fuckin' Chara and you'll never see it coming."

Both Babe and Joe stared at him.

"Dude," Joe said, eyebrows raised. "That was a real fucking metaphor."

He sounded suitably impressed.

Bill smirked, pleased with himself.

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?"

Babe was the only one still perplexed.

"We've literally been together for less than three full days. And only one of those was a game, which we won. Do you really think I need a speech about losing my edge or something?  _Already_?"

Bill exchanged looks with Joe, and then shrugged.

"Eh, maybe not, but I'd probably have to give you one anyway, so I'm like, proactive and shit. You'll thank me later."

He reached back and patted clumsily at Babe's knee before turning around and putting the car in drive.

Babe slumped back in his seat with a sigh.

But like, seriously, what the fuck.

~~~

Bill's words lingered in his head all throughout the bus ride. He spent the whole trip sitting with Gene, sharing earbuds as they watched movies on Gene's laptop while the Mortar Squad hung over the seats in front of them to coo loudly over how adorable they were. He couldn't even be that bothered, because Gene had only snorted and rolled his eyes before completely blocking them out, and he was so solid and warm along Babe's side, how could he focus on anything else?

But maybe that was what Bill meant? But it couldn't be, because they were just on the bus; it wasn't like Gene was distracting him from the game when they weren't anywhere near the ice.

He tried to put the thought out of his mind, and focus instead on how nice Gene smelled (how did he pull that off on a bus that perpetually smelled like an equipment bag?) and how calming his arm felt wrapped around Babe's shoulders.

It wasn't until the next morning that he realized what Bill might have been talking about.

The team was just filing into the visitor's dressing room of the Thunder's arena for their morning skate when Lip walked back into the hallway to take a phone call. Everyone was getting ready for a pre-skate warm-up when Lip re-entered the room, a careful smile on his face.

"If everyone could take a seat for a moment, I have an announcement to make."

"Tell it to me straight, Lip, are we all gay now?" Luz called out, to a round of laughter and hollering.

Lipton's smile remained bland. "Only you can answer that, George. I have both good and bad news. The bad news is that St. John's starting goaltender sprained his ankle last night, and he won't be able to play in their home game Friday night against Grand Rapids. Their backup goaltender will be in net, but that means that they need a new backup, and the good news is that they've decided to call up our very own Eugene Roe to fill the spot."

Now there was a full round of applause as everyone crowded around Gene, clapping him on the shoulder and messing up his hair, cheering, "Doc's going to the A!" and "Hope you brought your passport, Doc!"

Babe was the only one who didn't stand up immediately to congratulate him. His face was a rictus of surprise, halfway frozen between a smile and a grimace.

He was happy for Gene, of course. This was his first call-up to an upper league, and could very well be his first opportunity to showcase his skills at a higher level. It had only been a matter of time, after all, and he knew that anybody who watched Gene play would be suitably impressed. Gene was on an NHL contract – who knows, this might be just what he needed to keep a spot in the AHL, and to maybe even get a shot with Atlanta after that.

Of course Babe was happy for him.

He was just miserable for their nascent relationship. They hadn't even had a week together. They'd had a huge public declaration of their relationship, of course, but what did that mean, in the face of progressing your career, of getting a chance to showcase your talent in front of people who had the potential to make all of your childhood dreams come true? What was a less-than-a-week-long relationship in the face of  _that_?

Right from the start, everyone had said that they knew Gene was going to get called up any day now, as soon as there was an opportunity. Babe had always known on some level that this was coming. But God, they hadn't been together for even a  _week_ , there were so many serious things that they'd never had a chance to talk about. Or non-serious things, for that matter.  _Fuck_ , but Babe didn't even know Gene's favorite color, or his favorite food. He didn't even know his  _birthday_.

What kind of a relationship did Gene even have to leave behind, outside of media speculation?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

They'd barely done more than kissed, and that might be all they ever did.

Lip was still talking, trying to calm everyone down enough to say that their usually temporary backup was back in Georgia, so on short-notice and with Spina as their starter, their emergency backup would have to be their goalie coach, Chuck Grant. Grant hadn't played professionally in a few years, but he was a suitable backup in a pinch, especially seeing as he likely wouldn't even play with Spina in net for the final two games of the road trip.

"Doc doesn't fly out until tomorrow morning, so we get one more game with him before he leaves us for greener pastures. So let's help him out by giving him a good sendoff!"

The team cheered, and slowly went back to preparing for their warm-up, many still lingering around Gene.

"Hey, Doc, you're gonna have to learn to fit in with all of those Canadians," Perconte was saying. "Hope you packed your jacket, it's pretty much a frozen wasteland up there."

"He's going to  _Newfoundland_ ," Cobb scoffed. "Not the fucking Yukon."

"Of course." Luz slung an arm around Cobb's shoulders, completely ignoring how they bunched up in discomfort. "We have our resident Canadian here to tell us about it. Tell us, Roy, what is Canada like?"

"It's better than fucking America," Cobb said, trying to worm his way out of Luz's grip.

Luz, very much like a limpet, held on.

"Considering that everyone else here is American, and we're all  _amazing_ , doesn't that mean that American players are better?"

He was obviously saying it just to get a rise out of Cobb, who bristled immediately and completely gave in to the goading.

"Well that's fuckin' bullshit, because all of the best hockey players are Canadian. Gretzky is Canadian. Crosby? Canadian. And do you know who else is Canadian?"

"Wait for it," Bill whispered, suddenly right next to Babe.

"Brad-fuckin'-Marchand, that's who!"

"There it is!" Luz crowed, swiping a hand over Cobb's hair before he could dodge away.

"Say Roy, how  _is_  our dear friend Brad doing?" Skip asked, wiggling his eyebrows as he leaned in close to Cobb.

Cobb's lip was curled in disgust.

"He's a better player than any of you rejects. He has a Stanley Cup. He won gold in World Juniors,  _and_  at Worlds,  _and_  in the World Cup,  _where_  he was the top-goal scorer. How many of you fuckers have ever represented your country internationally? None of you, that's right. You all could only  _dream_  of being half the player that Brad Marchand is."

This verbal love letter had very little of Cobb's intended effect, as instead of being suitably impressed and cowed by Marchand's achievements, his teammates instead dogpiled him much as they had Gene earlier, scrubbing at his hair and cooing, "Oh, Roy, you can be  _our_  Little Ball of Hate!"

Babe glanced sideways at Bill. "So is Marchand...?"

"The poster on the ceiling," Bill said with a knowing nod.

"I do not have his goddamn poster on my goddamn bedroom ceiling!" Cobb shouted in protest, but at this point Babe was feeling rather inclined to believe otherwise.

"Heffron, can I talk to you?"

Babe nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden hand on his shoulder, before turning to see Gene watching him with an unreadable expression. He looked perhaps hesitant – his voice seemed to be – but there was something grim about him that made Babe absolutely not want to hear what he had to say, because he had the sudden thought that it couldn't be anything good.

God, but he wanted to be able to say that he had dated Gene for at least a week before they called it quits. Would it even count as dating at this point?

"Sorry Gene, uh, Doc, I have to, um, you know what I have to go right now and, um, yep bye."

It was probably one of the most mortifying moments of Babe's life as he suddenly fled the room, power-walking aimlessly in any direction that wasn't towards his impending breakup. It was, he considered, even worse than having to come out to the press a few days ago, because then at least he'd had Gene's support through the entire thing.

He was a coward, perhaps, but a coward who didn't want to have to acknowledge the end of his brief fantasy relationship until it was absolutely necessary.

Babe successfully avoided being caught alone by Gene for the rest of the day both at the rink and the hotel, doing his best to ignore the increasingly concerned looks sent his way by both Gene and his teammates.

"You look like you're going to puke," Harry said, pulling him aside before the game that evening. "And as someone with a new baby, I know what that face looks like, so don't try to argue with me. Whatever's going on with you and Doc, fix it before you  _actually_  puke, okay? I've cleaned up more vomit in the past month than anyone should ever have to see in their life, and I don't plan on cleaning up yours."

"I don't think they would make you-"

" _Fix. It_." Harry shook him firmly by the shoulder before making his exit, leaving Babe standing alone outside the dressing room, and suddenly feeling more alone than he ever had since first signing his contract with Toccoa.

He suddenly knew what Bill had meant. This thing with Gene... _God_ , they were barely together and they might be breaking up, despite Babe's attempts to stop it by, well, avoiding ever having to see Gene again (they couldn't break up if Gene couldn't find him!), and the absolute last thing on his mind was the game he was supposed to be playing in thirty minutes.

Fuck.

He had to get his shit together, for Gene, he had to make Gene's last game look good before he went to the AHL because if he left on a win they might even give him a chance to play, and if he got a chance to play, he could impress someone and maybe get a chance in the NHL, and then-

And then he'd be even farther out of Babe's reach, on to bigger and better things, and he would forget all about those few days he spent with that rookie ECHL player from Philly, the whole thing just a quirky line in his media biography.

Babe could see the whole thing laid out in front of him, the writing on the wall, and decided that he would much rather take the coward's way out than have to have Gene break up with him to his face.

He didn't say anything, even as the team skated out for warm-ups, and came back to the dressing room, and then came back out to start the game.

His head wasn't in the game, and his heart certainly wasn't, and fuck if it didn't show.

Babe allowed one of the sloppiest turnovers in his entire hockey career in the first ten minutes of the game, practically handing the puck to an opposing forward who skated in on net, undefended, and only by the grace of his pure hockey magic was Gene able to block that shot. Lip hadn't even looked at him when he came back to the bench from that shift, and Babe didn't know if that made him feel better or worse.

His next shift wasn't any better. He wasn't paying enough attention to where the puck was and made a late check, earning himself an interference penalty. Adirondack  _did_  capitalize on that mistake, scoring on the power play and putting the score at 1-0.

Babe wasn't even surprised when Lipton kept him on the bench for what would have been his next shift, sending Bill out with Harry instead, but it felt like having ice poured down the back of his jersey all the same.

Fuck, but he was letting his relationship (as much as he could call it that) get in the way of his hockey, and he had no idea how to make it stop.

He miserably trudged back to the dressing room during the intermission, head down, not wanting to talk to anyone, and certainly not wanting to see their pitying – or worse, angered – looks. Everyone gave him a wide berth, and Babe couldn't decide if he was pleased by that or not.

At this point he would be stunned if he wasn't scratched for the next game.

"Okay, come on you."

Bill's arm was around his shoulder and steering him purposefully out of the dressing room and off to an unused trainer's room.

"Okay, the fuck is this about?" Bill asked as soon as the door was closed. "This about Doc?"

Babe grimaced. "It's nothing."

"My pasty white ass is it nothing! Jesus Christ, you looked like a newborn giraffe out there, what the fuck was that? You're better than that!"

"Maybe I'm not, did you think of that? Maybe-"

"Cut the self-pitying bullshit, kid, we both know that you're a good hockey player so don't you even try that with me. This is about Doc. Don't think I didn't see you creeping around all day, not letting him get a single word in. What, you're upset that he got called up or something?"

"No!" Babe said a little too quickly. "I mean...no. I'm happy for him. He deserves it."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And why the hell are you avoiding him then?"

"Because what the fuck is there to avoid?" Babe exploded. "We barely have anything anyway, and now all of a sudden he's leaving, and he might not come back-"

"Oh, come on, the IceCaps starter isn't going to have a sprained ankle forever, Doc's coming back-"

"Okay,  _this_  time maybe, he'll come back, but what about the next time? What about next season? He's going places, everyone's said it all along, and I'm, I'm doing whatever the fuck I'm doing here, and eventually we're gonna get split up, so maybe it should be now. But I'm too much of a goddamn coward to let him say it to my face, so I'm just trying to avoid him and, and getting distracted from the game, and now I'm gonna get fucking scratched for sure because I can't play fucking hockey anymore."

Bill stared at him for a moment before he closed his eyes and slumped back against the door.

"Jesus Christ, kid, you sure now how to make a mess of things," he sighed.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Bill ignored him. "Is this about what I said in the car yesterday, about keeping your head up?"

When Babe didn't answer him, he continued, "Because the thing about keeping your head up, numbnuts, is that  _you still have to pay attention to the puck_. You gotta do both, focus on the puck and on your surroundings. And I know that you  _can_  do both, because you're a professional goddamn hockey player, and not a half-bad one at that. And Doc knows how to do both, too, even if he's a goalie and the metaphor doesn't totally work the same for him. Having a relationship doesn't mean you can't have a career, and having a career – even a career that means you aren't together all the time – doesn't mean you can't have a relationship. You got me? Doc isn't gonna fucking, what, break up with you, just because he's getting called up for a bit. Shit, he's so fucking gone over you it's pathetic. He could go play in goddamn  _Alaska_  and I think he'd still insist on long-distancing it with you because he really, really likes your dumb ass. And if you would get your head  _out_  of your ass, you would see that too, and you would talk to him and stop playing like you've never held a hockey stick before."

Babe blinked at him, stunned into silence.

"When the hell did you get so insightful?"

Bill straightened up and preened, smiling proudly.

"Didn't I tell you on day one? I'm your fucking mentor, rookie. I'm the most insightful fucking person you're ever gonna meet."

Babe didn't get a chance to take a crack at him about that, because there was a knocking on the door, Talbert telling them they had to get back on the ice for the second period.

There wasn't any time to talk to Gene.

Shit.

Bill still ruffled his hair as he shoved him out of the room, muttering, "Just talk to him, okay?" as he did.

But it wasn't like there was an easy opportunity to talk to Gene, not when he was in net and all of Babe's time on the ice was spent doing his damnedest not to tank his career. Halfway through the period, he hadn't done anything productive, but he also hadn't done anything else horrifically embarrassing, so he was ready to chalk up his mediocrity as a success.

Bill, being Bill, took matters into his own hands.

"Go fucking talk to him!" he hissed at Babe as they lined up for a faceoff in Toccoa's defensive zone. Babe didn't even get a chance before the puck was dropped, and Bill immediately dropped the gloves with an opposing defenseman who had been jawing at him all night. Play was called dead immediately, but Bill and the other guy were still going at it, trading punches while the crowd egged them on.

It took Babe an embarrassingly long time to realize what had happened.

"Gene!" He felt nearly breathless as he skated over to the goaltender who was watching the altercation warily from his crease. "I need to talk to you."

He couldn't see much of Gene's face through his mask, but his flat voice carried all too easily. "Heffron, this isn't the best time."

"No, but like, it's a great time, Bill made time for me, because I'm playing like garbage because of you."

He  _could_  actually see Gene's unimpressed look. "Wow. Thanks."

"No! Not like,  _because_  of you, but like, because I'm upset that you're leaving – not that I'm upset because you're  _leaving_ , because I'm so fucking happy for you, but because like, you're  _leaving_ , as in leaving me, and I'm going to miss you so fucking much and I'm so pathetically scared about what's going to happen to us, and-"

"Babe," Gene interrupted, stopping him with a gloved hand on his arm. "I'm coming back."

"Well, yeah, I know, but like, you'll leave again because you're so fucking good, Gene, you're an amazing goalie and soon they'll all know it, and I'll just be here, being me, and you'll forget all about me."

He really wished he had a clear view of Gene's face right about now, because there was a look in his eyes, soft and warm and maybe even a little twinkling, that he wanted to see a whole lot more of.

Bill had the other guy pressed to the ice, and the officials were now trying to drag them apart. Just as they showed signs of success,  _Buck_  of all people picked a fight with one of the Thunder's forwards, and now the fans were screaming anew and the officials had to split themselves between the two couples.

"I happen to rather like you, being you," Gene said softly. "And I think I'm going to keep liking you, being you, no matter where I end up, because I like you a whole fucking lot, Babe Heffron, and I'd like to keep on liking you for a long, long time."

Babe felt his face heat with more than exertion, and he couldn't help but lean in closer, his helmet tapping against Gene's mask. "Me too. I just...all of that. What you said."

He somehow flushed even more, but this close, he could see Gene's smile, so beautiful even through his mask.

Behind them, someone took a punch at Joe Toye, and now things had devolved into a full-on line brawl.

Babe only had eyes for one player, and he wasn't in an Adirondack jersey.

"We're gonna make this work," Gene said, pulling him closer. "No matter what happens, this is gonna work."

The officials had finally succeeded in ushering some of the players off of the ice, most in the direction of the dressing room. Bill was still in the process of grappling with a new player.

A sudden thought occurred to Babe.

"Hey Gene. You called me Babe."

Gene's face scrunched into a frown that was nothing short of adorable.

"I did? When?"

"Just now."

Gene considered it for a moment, before his face broke into a tiny smile that made Babe's heart leap in his chest.

"Babe...I guess I did."

" _Babe_ ," Babe mimicked, unable to help himself.

Gene shoved lightly at his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

"Heffron. Get back to the blue line."

Babe looked over his shoulder at the carnage on the ice. Sticks, gloves and helmets lay strewn everywhere, and the penalty boxes were looking suspiciously full – and that was only counting the guys who hadn't been kicked out of the game.

"I'm not sure that there's a blue line to get back to..." he murmured.

Bill was just being skated off the ice by a ref when Babe started to approach him. He was smiling, utterly unrepentant. "You work your shit out?" he called out, ignoring their audience and the grimacing referee at his arm.

Babe only had to nod before Bill was crowing in delight, loud enough for the people in the stands to hear it.

"I knew you two would be alright. If you remember anything I tell you, remember this, rookie: a defenseman is a goalie's best friend."

"No, my goalposts are my best friends," Gene called out, skating up behind Babe and throwing an arm around his shoulders.

"But my defenseman makes for a pretty good boyfriend."

He hugged Babe close and tapped the sides of their helmets together, smiling all the while, and it was better than any kiss that Babe could have ever imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: generoes on tumblr made [an edit for this fic](http://generoes.tumblr.com/post/164501414453) and it's fantastic.
> 
> First, the hockey:
> 
> I based Lieb's fine/suspension on some of the ECHL's suspension announcements, trying to match it to similar incidents, but I could be entirely off-base. I could find very little about how teams travel in the ECHL other than that they have team buses and that everyone flew to Alaska when the Aces were still in operation. But I do know that the Brampton Beast took their team bus during their playoff series against the Reading Royals last season, and that's pretty close to the distance between Toccoa and Glen Falls, so it seemed reasonable that the players would still take the bus.
> 
> The story behind choosing the St. John's IceCaps to be the team's AHL affiliate is that the IceCaps are yet another team related to the Thrashers' history that no longer exists. They began as the Minnesota Moose, and moved to Winnipeg to become the Manitoba Moose when the old Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes. When the Atlanta Thrashers became the new Winnipeg Jets, the Moose moved to Newfoundland and became the St. John's IceCaps, and they became the AHL affiliate of the new Winnipeg Jets. There was a significant travel distance between Winnipeg and St. John's, so the team was then moved back to Winnipeg to be the Manitoba Moose (again) and the old Hamilton Bulldogs moved to Newfoundland to be the new St. John's IceCaps, but only until their new arena could be constructed in Quebec. They are now the Laval Rocket, and the OHL's Belleville Bulls decided to be the new Hamilton Bulldogs, and nobody is the St. John's IceCaps. So basically, the IceCaps are another defunct team with a ridiculous history tied up with the Thrashers/Jets, and I thought the connection was funny. Therefore, they are Atlanta's (and Toccoa's) AHL affiliate.
> 
> Zdeno Chara is the longtime captain of the Boston Bruins and is known for being very, very large (6'9", 250 lbs). His teammate, Brad Marchand, is Roy Cobb's hockey crush, known for being a good but extremely pesty forward (his fans love him but literally everyone else hates him, which is typical for most agitators in hockey). Honestly the joke about Cobb being a huge Marchand fan was the very first note I ever wrote about this fic. I didn't get it in the fic but my headcanon is that Cobb is from Halifax, like Marchand, and that's how he became such a big fan. Word is still out on if that poster is really above his bed. "Little Ball of Hate" is one of the many nicknames given to Marchand, that one borrowed from historic pest Pat Verbeek. And as a Sabres and Canucks fan, I need to stop talking about the Bruins now because it hurts me.
> 
> Keeping your head up is a pretty common hockey adage and also just a good piece of advice. If you're watching the puck (or your skates) and your head is down you're likely to get checked, and it's not illegal to check someone who isn't paying attention to what's going on around them. If you don't want to get blindsided, keep your head up. A line brawl is when pretty much all of the players on the ice get into a fight (the best ones include the very rare goalie fight), as in, everyone in that line is fighting.
> 
> And now for the fic: I cannot thank you all enough for the love you've given this fic. I was astonished that a fic about hockey would get this much attention, and it means the world to me that you've all supported me through this, even though it took so much longer than I'd ever wanted it to (and _got_ so much longer than I'd ever expected!). Thank you so much to everyone who read, left kudos, or commented. I loved hearing from current hockey fans how much they liked the hockey aspect of the fic, and I was so excited to hear non-hockey fans getting interested in the sport because of the fic. That's honestly so cool, and I'm just blown away by the support for this fic. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!
> 
> If you'd like to read more of my writing, I have an upcoming Pacific Big Bang fic in the works, which is a canonverse Team Leckie werewolf AU starring Hoosier, so that promises to be a good time. And as always, my magnum opus and love of my life is [Catch-Tag](http://archiveofourown.org/works/707149), which I'll ask you all to read because I love it more than any fic I've ever written (check that out if you're here for reincarnated modern Bill and Babe going on adventures with the slowest-burn Baberoe you've ever seen).  
> And as always, you can catch me at [armypeaches](https://armypeaches.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


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